Legal Strategies for the Protection and Exploitation of Intellectual Property Rights for Startups

Abstract

There are many concerns an entrepreneur must struggle with when embarking on a business venture, but most important of these is issues regarding business’s intellectual property. In today’s evolving world of technology and social connectivity, intellectual rights are playing a vital role when it comes to starting or growing a business. Intellectual property refers to a number of distinct types of creations of mind with legal protection. These rights if not secured at the right time, may be lost forever. Intellectual property is a business asset which has commercial value that many startups possess but they fail to realize the importance of it. The main reason could be lack of knowledge in the field of Intellectual Property. This paper tries to discuss the importance of Intellectual property rights as it provides competitive gains for an enterprise and also increases its value and therefore it is necessary to let startup service providers and investors know the importance of I.P, and ways to protect intellectual property in one’s business will be discussed with examples. It is aptly said, ‘Ignorance of law is no defense’ similarly, the same cannot be pleaded in case of IP rights as they provide time bound protection hence it is imperative that IP rights must be secured at the first instance.