When business people think about of protecting their ideas first they think about a patent. According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office patent is a grant of “monopoly for a limited period of time on the use and development of an invention”. To obtain a patent it is necessary to file an application with an explanation why the invention is original, with detailed description of the invention and its aspects, with all drawings, statements and filing fee. But besides this technical issue there are so many things for business people to consider.

Who will provide with all the information that business will need to develop every idea to it logical conclusion including the ways in which ideas can be made, manufactured and marketed? How to protect an idea in such way, so that, no one can make a substantial improvement on it and steal the basic concept and design? How to use all the laws, methods and techniques that are available to all creative people to establish legal protection of an idea under the “First to Invent” provision of U.S. patent law. What about a special advertising copy that will communicate ideas to the right executives at the right companies? Finally, how to find and identify an exact market?

I recently ran across a non-profit which provides all these services to independent inventors comparing patent attorney, invention marketing firms and themselves. The noticeable fact that 90% of services provided is a marketing effort. In my opinion it is a huge help and I bet that’s what independent inventors need.

So here is the deal. To get a help in protection and marketing of inventions watch this informational video of the founder of the Inventor’s Assistance League (IAL), Ted De Boer, who tells about his organization that he started in the 60’s. IAL teaches inventors about a technique known as “pre-patent protection” so an inventor can discuss an idea to determine if it has market value. Thereby saving the expense of a patent until the time is right.

When business people plan a save harbor of intellectual property (IP) they consider a wide spectrum of legal tools to maximize the protection of IP assets. The main point is that IP protection strategy should be kept from the beginning of creation, during its development until a design is complete. The strategy of securing design ownership starts with recognizing a design as a potential asset, and continues to carefully plan its protection throughout the lifetime of a design optimizing IP protection and reducing infringement risks. It may include these specific goals.

Goal 1: “Generate design research. It should be done prior to the design challenge early in the long- term planning phase and in the concept generation stage of new product development. This general research includes a state of-the-art search of patent literature (patents and published patent applications), which is analyzed by the IP counsel and shared with the development team to spark design innovation. Just as the iPod design team would have looked to Sony’s 1979 Walkman and related patents for inspiration, design development teams benefit from studying past design efforts.” The good example of such research could be list of the following questions:

What’s the core intellectual idea or invention?
How easily can it be duplicated?
How did the idea/invention come about? Was the inventor working at another company? Was she a university researcher?
How might you protect against duplication via a patent, trademark, copyright, or some other vehicle?
How visible will the invention be within your product or service?

Goal 2: “Avoid designs owned by others. Identify IP risks associated with the proposed design concepts-ideally, in the feasibility stage of new product development-so that risky design concepts can be screened out early. Once a design concept is selected for further development, a targeted search looks for patents relevant to that design concept. As needed, the IP counsel facilitates a “design around” to place the final design outside the scope of IP rights of others.”

Goal 3: “Secure IP rights. IP counsel leads the development team’s efforts to protect selected design concepts in the feasibility stage of new product development. IP protection is sought not only for the preferred design concept but also for alternative concepts that may later be preferred by the company or the company’s competitors. Before product launch, the IP counsel ensures that IP protections are in place, including foreign protection when a product will be sold or licensed overseas. And upon product launch, the IP counsel establishes procedures for monitoring the activities of competitors to police IP rights.”

Goal 4: “Enforce and expand design assets. Even after design protection has been secured, steps should be taken in the active lifecycle phase to enforce IP rights. New competitive advantages can also be sought during the active lifecycle phase in connection with design improvements.”

Goal 5: “Harvest design assets. In the decline or exit phase in which a design reaches its sunset, the IP counsel can help extract value from IP assets. Instead of allowing them to go unused, IP assets can be harvested at this final phase by licensing or selling IP assets to other companies or by using those assets as leverage to settle disputes with other companies.”

The best way to protect IP assets is to follow the simple rule of “Be aware!” In other words, it is the responsibility of business people dealing with their intellectual property to manage IP assets protection by the implementation of the effective corporate intellectual property strategy. Undoubtedly, afore mentioned 5 steps of this strategy will help to save a lot of money.

Even don’t think about to reprint or make any other use of my content without my written permission. Business people face this kind of warning more and more searching websites. Permission in online communications is a very useful device to keep dishonest users out. But what website developers need to know about that?

Every developer faces problems of copyright permissions when he seeks to implement in his website such digital content as text, graphics, photos, videos, sounds, and other tools. In addition, all materials protected by patents, trademarks, and trade secret laws need a permission to use and a website developer needs to obtain these permissions. A developer needs to make careful considerations when he needs to get permission, in particular whether or not a specific item is protected by an appropriate law. For example, photos, film or video footage can constitute publicity rights of some people. On the other hand, it is essential to obtain copyright permission when such materials as text, photos, videos, music, and software are part of a website creation. In both parts of that example, a website developer needs to get a privacy release or license to use those materials.

Moreover, permission is needed even when used materials are not in the public domain and a created website doesn’t constitute “fair use”. This occurs when materials used in a website are created by non-employees. Public domain includes works that are never protected by copyright, whose copyright has expired, and are dedicated to the public domain. Fair use is permission to make limited use of preexisting protected works without obtaining permission and it is designed to help the advancement of knowledge and has a limited group of user as scholars, educators, and others who uses materials for this purpose. Some users that not included in that group take advantage of this very important exception to a copyright owner’s exclusive rights and use protected works without appropriate permission by just merely quoting with attribution.

This action doesn’t make such use legal because only giving credit doesn’t mean “fair use”. However, the reason why such infringement occurs is quite understandable. The process of obtaining permissions can be very difficult, long, and costly. On the one hand, many owners of copyrighted materials are hesitant to convert their works to digitized form and give permission to others because of the fear of losing control over the work. On the other hand, some owners intend to make some money by establishing their own websites and projects, and don’t want others to compete with them. From the perspective of a website developer, there is third reason- lack of experience in negotiating permissions and an unwillingness to waste their time and money for this long process.

The best solution which helps to prevent infringement in this case is clearance firms that have the resources and experience to perform this service within optimal conditions. An example of the successful maintenance of digital content permissions is the website of Corbis which is owned by Microsoft and consists of millions of images. Corbis is a licensee that maintains intellectual property of authors and a person obtaining use permission is a sub-licensee. He gets an exclusive right to the stock of photos for a certain amount of time and is responsible for the terms of the license.