Entri AdminEntrihub chats to Ashley Curran, founder of Curran Attorneys. Ashley talks about intellectual property.
Question 1: What is covered under intellectual property?
Ashley: What's really important these days is what we call an intellectual property or the intellectual capital of other businesses. That really covers your ideas, your customer lists, you'll see your trade secrets, anything that you've created, and new ideas that you've come up with. It's very important that a. if you are presenting your new idea that the people you're presenting it to possibly sign confidentiality agreements, non-disclosure agreements specifically if your business is going to be based on this revolutionary idea that no one has any knowledge of. That's also a very important aspect for entrepreneurs to bear in mind. If they start hiring staff, is their confidential information that needs to be protected, are they going to be customer lists or specific systems processes especially in the tech industry that need to be protected. If they were disclosed to a competitor would your business suffer immensely.
Question 2: How to protect your intellectual property.
Ashley: Business owners need to think of any confidentiality agreements in their daily operations. Then take it a step further and consider restraint of trade agreements, non-disclosures registering trademarks, company names, patents if there are new inventions. So really the focus is on your intellectual property and protecting it.
Question 3: How much does it cost to draw up a Non-Disclosure Agreement?
Ashley: Your NDA's are pretty standard, so again you're looking at about maybe R1 500 to about R3 000 for your numbers for your initial basic non-disclosure.
Question 4: What is the process and cost to register a trademark?
Ashley: Initially what you should do first is, it's a two-step process. You should check the trademark register. We do that through very specific attorneys that are linked up to us. If you want a registered trademark. You would either be looking to register your logo. Which is what we call your trademark or a business plan, a catchphrase and that's what we call your wordmark. With those two you know whether you want to reach the word mark or trademark you need to do a search to see if they've been registered before. Your search generally costs about R750 if this comes back and says there's no conflict in registrations. Then you could proceed to register those trademarks. The registration process does take up to 18 months and then cost about R6 000.
Question 5: What protection does a trademark provide?
Ashley: It really does provide that protection that no one else can use that name without your consent. If you've got a very specific if your goodwill is associated with the name of your brand you want to protect that. You don't want customers to be confused by another company out there with the same name. Which might dilute your customer base and that's the benefit of registering a trademark that absolutely no one else can use it without your consent. If they do use it without your consent you have absolutely every right to approach the court for an interdict and protecting it.