During the ongoing COVID-19
(Coronavirus) pandemic, most of the business firms, organizations, and startups
across the globe are working remotely; however, this precaution may increase
the risk of loss of Intellectual
Property Rights (IPRs) for such companies.
As professionals and experts are
nowadays making the most out of social media platforms such as Facebook and
LinkedIn, and video calling tools such as Zoom and Skype – brands and
businesses need to know and understand that these online tools and platforms
may not cater to some of the controls that are usually incorporated in
traditional in-person meetings. For instance, there may be a few unexpected
participants on your Skype group video call. Moreover, a person may even record
your online presentations without your knowledge.
It is a matter of fact that yes –
online platforms indeed make it a lot more convenient to distribute and share
business material with other employees; however, they also increase the
potential risk of adverse consequences. For instance, if the details of a
unique innovation are shared without restriction or posted online, then the
potential Patent
Rights associated with the innovation may be lost as well. In the scenario
of trade secrets, once the cat is out of the bag, it can never be put inside,
no matter what. It becomes exceedingly arduous to maintain the terms of
confidentiality if the trade secret somehow becomes known to the public.
A few examples of trade secrets
include financial information, customer lists, engineering data, manufacturing
processes, chemical compositions, and recipes. As per various recent reports by
the Intellectual Property (IP) experts,
trade secrets having a worth of billions of dollars are stolen electronically
ever year in the United States alone. Hence, without any second thoughts, it
has now become more crucial to take all the required steps and mitigate such
losses.
Now, there’s a dire need to make
ourselves familiar with a few ways using which the business firms and
organizations can stay safe and secure in the ongoing situation. One essential
strategy lies in making the employees aware of all the risks involved in
working remotely. Brands and businesses can proactively take a few simple
measures such as creating internal policies, describing the topics appropriate
for online meetings well in advance, determining and limiting the online
audience, and restricting the dissemination of sensitive and confidential
information, along with exploring different platforms for sharing and presenting
such information. Additionally, companies can also make the most out of
non-disclosure agreements for managing sensitive conversations with
third-parties. They can even consider requiring registrations for their
streaming presentations and asking all the participants to give their
introduction at the beginning of the meeting itself so that they can
conveniently identify the people in the room, including the ones off-screen. ✅ For view source: https://www.trademarkmaldives.com/blog/how-does-remote-working-increase-the-risk-of-loss-of-intellectual-property-rights/
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