Protecting your brand: intellectual property for value added exports

Like insurance, intellectual property is a tool for managing risk. While insurance protects your physical assets, intellectual property protects something just as important, your ideas and business identity. Ideas are a valuable part of every business, from new inventions and technologies to creative branding, packaging and marketing. Intellectual property rights ensure that the brand owner receives the benefit of their work. This helps them to maintain the integrity of their business identity. Without intellectual property protection, anyone would be free to copy technology, designs and branding. The graphic on the right defines the main types of intellectual property, divided into registered rights (which require filing in a government office) and not registered rights which are automatically granted when the intellectual property is created. Intellectual property infringement is the unlawful use of intellectual property without the permission of the owner. Infringement is widespread in Asia and can cause serious harm both to sales and brand reputation. In the wake of the 2008 melamine tainted infant formula scandal, in China the US Grocery Manufacturers Association commissioned a study on counterfeit and falsely labelled goods. Its conclusion: these dishonest practices were costing the food industry ten to fifteen billion US dollars each year. The cost of intellectual property registration is not insubstantial. New ventures are sometimes tempted to put it off until a later date when more capital is available. This can be a recipe for disaster; even a slight delay gives competitors and squatters the opportunity to claim your rights. It is important to remember that registered intellectual property protection is territorial. Protection in Australia will almost never extend to provide protection overseas. An important step in planning for export is working carefully with professional advice to ensure that all relevant forms of intellectual property are properly registered in every country where you intend to do business