Home Business Start Up Must Recognise and
Protect Intellectual Property
 Many home business start up owners do not think they actually
own Intellectual Property (IP) therefore they take no action to protect intellectual property. They associate
IP solely with registered trade marks or patents. Of course, these are part of your IP, but there are many
other areas to be aware of.
Your data base; registered Business Name; ABN number; any Manuals; Procedures; Certificates; your web site; any
articles or publications; any designs are all IP and need to be protected. If you have arranged, organised,
designed anything to do with your home business start up, then it is your IP. All constitute IP and you need
to protect intellectual property. If you come to sell your business, you certainly can ‘add value’ by providing an
inventory of your Intellectual Property.
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No
Cost
The main reason is simply to have a record - but it also keeps you be fully aware of just what
it is that you do have in place for your business. The longer you are in business the more likely
you are to forget just what it is you have done to establish your business. Put a $ value to your
IP - take into account the time it took to set up and any special software required.
Home business
start up operators can access a FREE template to
log your Intellectual Property
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Whatever you decide about IP - just remember one thing. Even if you are able to afford the cost of registering a
trademark or patent, you must also able to afford the cost of enforcing any infringements. If you are not, do not
destroy your businesses’ funds by spending them all trying to enforce a trade mark; it is simply not worth it.
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Case Study Relating to Protect
Intellectual Property for Home Business Start Up
Jan Herron had sold a business for ½ a million dollars. Once sold, the new owners promoted the
business using the fact that awards were won. Though this occurred when owned by Jan, they made it
sound as though they were responsible for the awards - even quoting a Minister in Government who
made a comment about Jan winning the Awards. Jan decided to sue even though she knew the new owners
were also solicitors - it wasn’t long before she started to eat into her profit from the sale. And
did she win? No - it was sort of an impasse.....what a waste!
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TIP to Protect Home
Business Start Up
Intellectual Property
As you develop a process within your business, keep a record of it. If you
wish to sell the business in the future, having a register of what IP the business owns (as opposed
to you owning) will definitely add value to the sale.
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Low
Cost
This book discusses the importance (or otherwise) of spending big $'s on
IP.
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