Detekt believes: IP collaboration key to success

Daniel, founder of Detekt, recently took part in a business forum hosted by an intellectual property consulting firm. The main discussion was the challenges associated with sharing intellectual property. Sharing ideas is often a necessary part of successfully delivering a product design from idea to market. Daniel shared his experiences with taking products from idea to market. All the while respecting and upholding other partners patents, trademarks, and intellectual property.

So what is intellectual property? We often see articles talking about patent trolls, and copyright conflicts. It may seem murky and the fear is that it could make people overly protective of sharing ideas. This shouldn’t be the case, however, as intellectual property can absolutely be straight forward.

So here’s a quick crash course into intellectual property:

What is intellectual Property? Intellectual property is something unique that you created. Examples of intellectual property can include books, films, products, and songs.

What people really think of when they talk about intellectual property is Intellectual Property protections. These are legal tools we designers and entrepreneurs have in our arsenal to protect our ideas.

These include:

Patents: A patent protects the core idea of how something works. It is a legal protection to prevent people from taking your idea and copying it. A patentable idea must be original.

Copyrights: Copyright automatically applies once your idea has been expressed. You don’t need to register for copyright for it to applicable, but in order for it to apply it has to be original and tangible (write it down, sing it, make a model of it etc).

Trademarks: Trademarks have to be registered and they distinguish the goods and services of one trader to another. These include words, slogans, logos, shapes, colours, and sounds.

Design rights: This is a legal protection that protects the aspects of a product that are aesthetic. Think the shape of the coca-cola bottle. Similar to applying for a patent the design must be original.

The successful delivery of a product in the modern global economy is really only possible from the mutual collaboration between businesses, especially if you are a start up or sole trader. There’s only so much you can do in house. Non-disclosure agreements are a great tool to protect your ideas, whilst allowing you the freedom to share them with companies, or individuals that could strategically assist you in taking your ideas to market. This is a contract that you and the other party enter into to keep your ideas that are shared secret. So the key takeaway should be, sharing ideas is possible under most circumstances if you have an original idea and you take the necessary steps to protect it.

Daniel had a great time at the event that was attended by attorneys, patent agencies, media, designers and innovators. It was great to see the conversations and ideas being shared around the table. For Detekt it was great to have the chance to contribute our know-how in turning dreams and concepts in to world class products and services, whilst supporting and upholding our intellectual property relationship’s with key stakeholders.

We here at Detekt feel privileged to have been invited to speak at the intellectual property seminar and love the chance to share our experiences with others in the industry. Daniel concluded his seminar with the statement that we here at Detekt take to heart, that it is not only enough that we, as individuals, respect someone’s ideas, but that as an industry we must all work towards the mutual respect of people’s ideas to create a more sustainable product development climate for all of us.

SUMMARY: Sharing ideas is often a necessary part of successfully delivering a product innovation to market. Intellectual property protections are great tools to protect your ideas, whilst allowing you the freedom to share them with other companies that can assist you in taking your products to market. We here at Detekt are proud to have been invited to the Intellectual property seminar and share our expertise in delivering best in class product designs and helping customers navigate the world of intellectual property.