About IP

Businesses rely upon two main sources of value – tangiable property and intellectual property.

Tangiable property would include buildings, plant, machines and financial assets of the business.  Most businesses can tell when someone is taking their tangiable property, be that the theft of stock or siphoning-off of funds from bank accounts.

Intellectual property is more difficult to monitor, but is at least as important as tangiable property (some would say more!).  It is what marks a successful business out from a mere collection of buildings, machines and cash.  Even the most basic of businesses or individuals rely to some extent on Intellectual Property, from the craftsman who produces a few handcrafted pieces to his list of dedicated customers to a massive pharmaceutical giant spending massive sums on research and development of the latest drug.

One of the benefits of intellectual property over tangiable property is the ability to derive income from less risk or investment.  A business which has developed a novel product and which has expertise in one area does not have to own the means to produce the product, the expertise to market the product or own the retail premises to sell the product – it can license its expertise to another, allowing others in the process to do what they do best.

Part of the difficulty with intellectual property comes in trying to identify what intellectual property exists in the business, what is at risk of being taken and in protecting this in the most appropriate manner.  This is where professional advisors make themselves invaluable.