If you’re a first-time entrepreneur and you’re starting your first business, it’s important to know how to protect your rights as an owner and producer.
You might be surprised at how easy it is to steal your business idea, name and even property if you don’t know how to protect yourself. While engaging any of the best commercial litigation lawyers Brisbane has to offer is a good idea, doing some research before you call them in is a good move.
Here are some things that every new business owner should do to protect their property—from their ideas down to their names:
Check the list of patents and trademarks.
It’s important that you know you’re not infringing on someone else’s property—or else they can sue you. Make sure you check for existing designs, patents and even trademarks. If you think you can get in trouble but want to register something different, calling a lawyer is the next best thing to do.
Just because you’ve registered your business name, that doesn’t mean you’re the only one who can use it.
If you want the sole rights to a name or design, you have to make it your trademark. There’s a separate database and registration process for that—so you have to make sure you’ve registered your name to stop people from usurping your brand or imitating you, Creagh Weightman Lawyers note.
Your stuff can still be reverse-engineered, especially in other countries.
Depending on your country, you can protect the design of your product and even the process that you use to make it. But in countries like India, they can reverse-engineer products—so beware.
In the end, knowing the law in Australia and being able to protect your invention, business and name correctly may mean everything between an innovation and a fad.