8 Steps to Prevent Unauthorized Use of Intellectual Property Online

Your company’s Intellectual Property (IP), regardless of what it is or the form in which it is existing, is often more valuable than anything else. Hence, the security teams and IP executives of your firm must understand the need to keep these crucial assets safe against the rapidly emerging dark forces that are continuously trying to steal them. With the advancements in digital technologies, robbery and unauthorized use of inventive works like pictures, content, or other vital IPs have become very common. The unique online IP assets that are intended to gain followers and customers for your business if stolen and used by others can reduce your profits. Therefore, it is essential to legitimately prohibit others from infringing on your online intellectual property.

Steps to Protect your IP Online

Is somebody already using your work and thus, earning on your name? Don’t worry as the following steps will not only help you in dealing with unlawful use of your work but also reduce the possibilities of your IP’s theft in the future.

1. Comprehending Copyright Law is Must: Your unique blog, picture, content, and video are your IP and get protected from the moment you create them. Undoubtedly, it means that no one can use the work without your permission, but many people (knowingly or unknowingly) still try to reproduce it. No matter what the reason is, people often try to steal and use your assets. Nonetheless, you can prevent them from doing so by using the copyright protection surrounding your work, but as different work is protected differently, there is a need to have a deep insight into copyright law. Besides, filing a wrong Copyright Infringement case can leave you with penalties, thus turning it more significant to comprehend the law.
2. Issue an Official Copyright Notice: Such notices are one of the best means to prevent people from violating your work as it informs people that the particular work is your IP. Though these notices don’t grant additional protection or rights, yet putting them in your content can keep your work safe.
3. Formulate an Easily Understandable Permission Policy: Create an explicit permission policy that provides clear statistics about how users can use your work. Tell them for what kind of use they need to take your permission and what they can use without seeking your consent. It will benefit you by making people consult you before using your content as well as by giving a published standard that you can refer to if anyone infringes your IP.
4. Have insight into Users’ Intention: Not every person who re-posts your work does so to violate it. Some may do this as they are not aware of the law or the fact that the work is your IP. Moreover, a few may be using it just because they want to develop the interest of their target readers. Hence, be cautious and have an ideology about the users’ intention behind using your asset before taking any legal step.
5. Request Removal of your Work: Many times, the users’ motives are not harmful, i.e., they are violating your Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) unknowingly. Even after executing the previously mentioned step, if you still come across such users, be kind to them and try not to suppress their enthusiasm. Send an email or put a comment informing them that they are unintentionally committing an illegal act. Furthermore, suggest them to get benefitted from your work by using it legally as per your permission policy.
6. Turn Your Request into Demand: Are the users not responding to your request aptly? It’s time to be a little bit rigid and turn your request into demand. Send a demand letter or an email asking the users who are behaving as offenders to remove your copyrighted content from their site.
7. Extract Benefits from Infringer’s Hosting Service: Are the offenders still not ready to cooperate? Carry out some searches and discover their WhoIs record. You can do this by utilizing the efficient tool named as DomainTools. The information gathered in this way will reveal their domain registration information, encompassing the details of the host of the website. Create an email, including statistics that why you want the offenders to remove your work from their website. The legitimate service on receiving your email will investigate the case, and if it discovers your request appropriate, then demand the offender to respond as you want. Nonetheless, if the infringers don’t act aptly, it will take their website down.
8. Hire an Attorney-at-law: Do the service providers appear shady, incompetent, or offshore? Relax as it is not a new concern, many people suffer from the same one. At this instance, IP attorneys can serve you with relief by putting such nasty infringers out of your professional life. They can even proffer guidelines on How to Manage Intellectual Property, how to ensure effective IP Portfolio Review and Management, etc., to avoid similar worries in the future.

IP is the base of almost every business, and thus, no one can afford to lose these valuables in others’ hands. Hopefully, the steps in this article will prove beneficial in safeguarding your intellectual property online. So don’t miss out on these steps as not directly but undoubtedly they play a crucial role in your overall success. 

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Must be Aware of Copyrights! Let’s Know About Copyleft Now!!

In the present Internet age where it has become ever-easier to infringe on Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs), you must have heard about copyright. Most of us know that copyright is an exclusive right that enables the creator to use his original work while preventing others from stealing it.
As a creator, you need to safeguard your unique and creative Intellectual Property (IP) assets. For instance,

• Photographers should copyright their photos,
• Software developers should use appropriate licenses,
• Bloggers should issue DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) notices.

However, this can be a headache, specifically if you are prolific and your work is famous. That’s why many creators are adopting copyleft. Here’s everything you should know about the copyleft license.

Copyleft

Copyleft is all about a concept by which you can share your work to third parties with some rights such as copying, modifying, etc. Under copyleft license, people are free to use, change, or distribute the work as per their need in exchange for just one condition of preserving the same freedom in the modified versions of the work. It encourages more and better publications. However, copyleft obliges people to distribute the modified work on the base of providing the same or similar copyleft license to others, but it isn’t necessary to make copyleft work free like in the public domain.

3 Key Concepts Related to Copyleft

1. Copyleft is About Users Freedom

Despite what the name implies, copyleft is not about abolishing copyright. Instead, it is a subset of the copyright license and functions on an objective to provide freedom to the users.To understand this concept, we need to recall copyright that bestows the owners of the original work with legal rights to dictate how others can or cannot copy, reform, and distribute their works. If someone uses the original work in a way contrary to how its creator allows, the owner is entitled to take legal action, i.e., file Copyright Infringement case. It means the creator with Registered Copyright holds power to restrict what others can do with his work. Although copyleft licenses exist within the legal structure of copyrights, their core notion is that the users should be allowed to copy, modify, and distribute works as they want, with only one crucial clause: all derivative works offer the same freedom of use to other users.

2. Copyleft Is Much More Than Just Permission

Copyleft license is not like a permissive license, which grants users the freedom to do anything they want. Copyleft gives freedom but imposes some demands as well. The most noticeable requirement of the copyleft license is that the users must distribute derivative works under licenses that offer rights, which are either the same or similar to the original work.
For example:  Suppose a photographer gives you a copyleft photo. As a user, you have the right to modify and share that photo however and to whoever you want, but you would also need to permit anyone else to use your work as he wants. It is known as the ‘share-alike’ clause.
Copyleft is beyond just allowing freedom; it demands freedom.

3. Copyleft Isn’t Always Free

As mentioned above, a copyleft has two aspects:

• The freedom for users to copy, modify and distribute derivative works
• The “share-alike” clause to maintain liberty in derivative works.

Nonetheless, there is nothing that makes copyleft work available at no charges. In other words, you may not be able to get a specific copyleft work without paying for it. However, once you do pay for it, you’re free to use it as long as you maintain the same freedoms in the derived work.

Difference between Copyright and Copyleft

Since the concept of copyleft springs out from that of copyright, there can be hardly any comparison between copyright and copyleft. Nevertheless, copyright is restrictive in terms of forbidding third-parties from using rights reserved for the author without his permission whereas copyleft allows third-parties to use the rights liberally but while ensuring that the liberality will not cut off and reaches to every user of the work. In simple words, copyright emphasizes restriction and originality of work of an author, whereas copyleft proffers as well as demands freedom.

Copyright or Copyleft

People often have queries; whether they should go for copyleft, is it right for them, etc. Well, solutions to such questions lie in the author’s will; whether to share the rights with third-parties ready to do the same with others or keep them to himself/ herself. If you go for copyleft licensing, you may sometimes find it a bit harder to make expected money. Besides, even if you succeed in making earnings, they would be significantly less in comparison to that you could have made by traditional copyright rules. Hopefully, this article has given you a better idea about copyright and copyleft that can aid you in making a fair decision. Nevertheless, if any doubt is bothering you, be smart and consult an experienced attorney who can assist you in understanding these legal terms better.
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Starbucks Enters Trademark Dispute with a Small Alaska Company

Starbucks is clashing with a small Alaska company named Mountains & Mermaids over a trademark term. The former who is a Seattle-based coffee giant said that Siren’s Brew for which the later filed a Trademark Application is too similar to its branding.

As the Anchorage Daily News reported, Starbucks wants the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to reject the application filed by this small Wasilla-based Mountains & Mermaids Company. Applied late last year, the Alaska business has been seeking to get Trademark Registration for the term ‘Siren’s Brew’ for its products since that time. It has branded its apparel with the image of a siren or mermaid holding a cup of coffee and recently began using the design on coffee.

Starbucks in an opposition filed in August this year said that it applied to trademark ‘Siren’s Blend’ for its coffee products in February 2019, but the USPTO has refused the application as of May, based on a possibility of confusion with Siren’s Brew.

Starbucks continued by saying that the long-time use of siren in its branding doesn’t end up with its famous green logo. Instead, it has extended the brand’s use of the term as per its filing. Employees use the word to refer to its business and products, added Starbucks.

Starbucks further in an emailed statement announced that for near about half a century, it has invested in establishing a relation between a siren and coffee. Besides being an integral part of the Starbucks’ logo since the brand got established in 1971, the siren is the face of the company to the world.

On the other side, Monica Hamilton owning Mountains & Mermaids along with her daughter named Sarah said that they were shocked to know about Starbucks’ opposition in regards to their trademark application. She added that there is no confusion at all. They are neither interested in interfering with Starbucks’ business nor want them to interfere with theirs.

Launched in 2017, Alaska Company is an online retailer with many of its products sporting nautical imagery. The term ‘Siren’s Brew’ of this company applies to the products such as hoodies mugs, stickers, etc., that include the design of a siren or mermaid holding a coffee cup. The quote incorporated in the design asserts that a siren needs her morning coffee before a day of wrecking ships and drowning men.

Eric Pelton, a lawyer on behalf of Mountains & Mermaids, said that whatever term Starbucks’ workers use within the company to describe their business is not the same as a Registered Trademark. Mr. Pelton also said that he plans to submit a response to Starbucks’ opposition to the USPTO next week. For view source: https://www.trademarkmaldives.com/blog/starbucks-enters-trademark-dispute-with-a-small-alaska-company/

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New European Patent Extends Vubiq Networks’ Global Protection for Wireless Communication

The innovation leader in extremely high frequency (EHF) millimeter-wave wireless broadband communications technology, solutions, and products named as Vubiq Networks announced that the European Patent Office has recently awarded a new technology patent for its wireless communication.

The patent numbered EP2737718B1 is related to System and Method for Wireless Communication in a Backplane Fabric Architecture.

Mike Pettus, the founder of Vubiq Networks, said that the allowance for this Patent Application provides additional worldwide protection for their millimeter-wave Intellectual Property (IP). They can now keep their IP safe in the area of ultra-high-speed, short-range, wireless connectivity as applied to solve the scaling constraints as well as costs for internal data center connections, switching, and cloud computing.

He added that their innovative EHF wireless technology leverages the wide bandwidths of the millimeter-wave spectrum for requirements of the high-density communications within the modern data center. It overcomes the existing limitations of cabled and centralized switching architectures.

Vubiq Networks’ technology provides the wireless uplink capacity of more than one terabit per second from a single server rack through its innovative method to create a millimeter-wave extensive mesh network.

By using millimeter-wave wireless connectivity, the company emphasizes combining the elimination of all inter-rack copper, fiber cabling, and core switches with higher throughput and reliability, and lower latency and cost.

Mr. Pettus continued by saying that the new patent award is the European version of their existing U.S. patent numbered 9537794, issued on 3rd January 2017. In the series of patents that they refer to collectively as their data center patents, this is the 5th one. Although it carries chip-to-chip, board-to-board, and rack-to-rack high-speed communications from their earlier patents, this patent addresses the physical architecture of deployment in and on the rack cabinet in a data center environment.

Vubiq CEO, John Dilworth, said that as the company resumes proceeding further to worldwide protection of its millimeter-wave patent portfolio, this recent patent grant is a significant achievement.

He added that besides this newly granted patent by the European Patent Office, they were also awarded a European patent for their millimeter-wave exactness waveguide interface. In total, the firm holds 13 U.S. technology patents, 2 U.S. patent applications, and 2 European patents in the area of EHF millimeter-wave components and system-level communications.

Vubiq Networks

Headquartered in Irvine, California, Vubiq Networks, Inc. is a privately held wireless networking technology company, which designs, manufactures, and markets high-bandwidth millimeter-wave products. Intending to continue to innovate in the millimeter-wave market, the company provides noticeable solutions in regards to wireless broadband communications, RFID tag decoding, video transport, wireless data center services, and synthetic aperture radar applications. 

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Intellectual Property Rights: A Crucial Need for Present MSMEs

MSMEs or Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises that play a vital role in growing a country’s economy often lose out when it comes to the safety of their ideas and strategies. Hence, it is imperative to look for something that can protect the creations and innovations of MSMEs. Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) are the best source adept in keeping the unique and original assets of companies safe in the current highly competitive world.

Intellectual Property (IP) industry nowadays is accessible with many types of IPRs, like trademarks, patents, etc. Nevertheless, MSMEs can opt for any of these IP rights, but sometimes one kind of IP can protect a particular asset better than others. For instance, a trademark is an exclusive IPR that suits best when it comes to secure the unique name, logo, or other assets of MSMEs. By providing a unique identity to a product, the trademark helps its owner to gain credibility amongst consumers, which ultimately serves him with financial profits. On the other side, to protect the unique and new designs that form the base of business models of some MSMEs, the enterprises’ need could not depend on a trademark. They need an IPR that is known for securing designs. Since the requisites vary as per the nature and assets of MSMEs, there is a need to implement IP protection after understanding it appropriately.

Sources to be Aware of IP

IP awareness programs are the best way to be familiar with IP. Including the Intellectual Property Facilitation (IPFC), Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), National Institute for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, and National Institute of Intellectual Property Management, several other institutions are famous for organizing IP awareness programs. Some of the programs with which these institutions attempt to make MSMEs aware of IP encompass:

• Seminars,
• Workshops,
• Short-term and long-term training.

Need for IP Framework

With the continuous and rapid emergence of new products and businesses, the market is turning competitive. The worst fact is that to stay ahead of others in such a challenging era, many big firms don’t hesitate even in exploiting the smaller companies, thus making it crucial for the MSMEs to get familiarized with the IP protection available for their assets. That’s why it is of paramount importance for MSMEs to have an appropriate IP framework that prevents them from losing the game in the hands of big players.

An appropriate IP framework is beneficial for MSMEs in not just defending their innovative products or works but also enhancing their market value amongst the potential investors, shareholders, and consumers. Note that the IPRs, if valued, maintained, and utilized strategically can undoubtedly increase the MSME’s reputation and competitiveness.

The Present Situation

MSMEs, in the present scenario, are contributing to around 50 percent of the total manufacturing industries and 45 percent of the overall shipments in India. That’s what makes these enterprises a noticeable source adding much to the Indian economy. However, to pursue playing a role in growing the country’s economy, MSMEs have to stay away from legal issues, including trademark infringement cases, patent violation lawsuits, etc. Assuredly, the high costs, required documents, and many other things associated with IPRs turn it a bit complex for MSMEs to obtain and enforce IP protection. Nonetheless, if obtained precisely by understanding all the facts related to the IP system, the IPRs can undoubtedly bestow the owner, i.e., MSMEs with fruitful outcomes. Are you also an owner of any minor, or small, or medium-sized enterprise? It is time to secure your business with suitable IP rights that will not just keep your assets protected but also provide you with fruitful advantages for years. 

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Intellectual Property Strategy: All You Need to Know

Mainly considered to be a legal source to protect assets from being used without their owners’ permission, Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) are also helpful in driving opportunities to earn more and gain competitive benefit. That’s is the reason why most businesses in the present challenging era emphasize working with Intellectual Property (IP) strategy in addition to their business strategy. IP provides exclusive rights that allow authorized accessing and using several elements, like medicines, industrial products, etc., while keeping the vulnerabilities of legal issues minimum. The IPRs guarantee avoidance and elimination of various types of misuses, including:

• Counterfeiting
• Abusive or unauthorized use
• Theft or diversion of IP assets
• Copying of registered or patented items

The combination of trust and protective strategy associated with IP can be a perfect way to grow your business to a remarkably fruitful level in today’s highly competitive marketplace. Hence, it is imperative to comprehend the IP strategy along with its core elements, and importance.

IP Strategy

Intellectual Property (IP) Strategy is a combination of several steps that help a business to manage its IP assets, define how its research and development team should operate for achieving the company’s goals, which may be building a reputation or increasing the revenue. Generally, protecting different types of IP assets appears an expensive deal; however, with an apt IP strategy, you can ensure the protection and management of your assets at a reasonable price. Besides, it can help in extracting good ROI, i.e., returns on your business investments. That’s why all the businesses, whether large, small, new, or old, should have a clear and understandable IP Strategy.

Core Elements of A Result-oriented IP Strategy

Strategically using your IP assets is one of the best ways to grow your business while facing the least possible hurdles. Hence, you must always emphasize running your business after creating an IP strategy that encompasses the following three core elements:

IP Protection: Intellectual Property Law provides exclusionary rights that undoubtedly prevent the misuse of your IP assets, but the continuous advancements in technology are making it a bit sophisticated for the people to use them appropriately. Hence, there is a crucial need to create and use an IP strategy that includes defensive publishing as one of its vital parts. It will aid you in not only keeping the exclusionary rights robust throughout their lifespan but also in staying safe against the two below-given hazardous threats.

• Patent trolls, which apply to patents, focus only on collecting license fees or penalty charges from the party involved in Patent Infringement.
• Picket-fence processes in which competitors who desire to erode your core patent’s value, patent some incremental improvements over it, and get a license for leveraging your core technology on preferential terms.

R&D Operations’ Optimization: Technologies and techniques associated with the traditional patent search processes are so intricate that a comprehensive search may take days to execute. Use state-of-the-art analysis tools and optimize your search processes as well as the ability to provide actionable insights. Moreover, there is a need to empower personnel to conduct searches by employing natural language queries rather than arcane syntax. These measures will boost up your decision-making ability, which further helps in building up a more competitive and agile company.

IP Assets’ Monetization: The justification of ‘how effective an IP strategy is’ mainly based on the top or bottom-line value it provides to an organization. Monetization is far beyond just enabling products to sell at a faster rate under the shield of Intellectual Property Rights Protection. An efficient IP strategy can help you to monetize your IP assets as well as identify infringers and potential licensing partners in both the private and public sectors.

Importance of IP Strategy

We are living in a rapidly developing economic world where the restrictions (due to developments) on several materials, like land, minerals, transportation, and many others are becoming prominent day-by-day. An IP strategy covers measures that expedite the creation, development, and management of IP assets along with maintaining a balance with restricted items. IP strategy, which consists of all crucial things like the company’s attributes, information about its products, etc., can help the firm in protecting and promoting their assets in a manner that ensure remarkable returns on IP-related investment. It also enables you to identify and evade the risks that may harm your organization anytime. Finally, we can say that an effectively designed IP strategy is one of the best means to ensure the commercial growth of any business in the present challenging era. For view source: https://www.trademarkmaldives.com/blog/intellectual-property-strategy-all-you-need-to-know/

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