While it is essential to clearly define the ownership of your intellectual property (IP), IP ownership will always come with some level of risk.
This picture is made more complex given the variety of potential risks you could encounter. These include:
- Disputes as to who owns particular IP rights
- Infringement disputes challenging your rights as the legal owner of those rights
- Disputes over the terms and payments associated with IP you have licensed to or from others
- Disputes arising from the expiration of certain IP rights
- The growing threat of IP theft via cyberattacks, espionage or employee wrongdoing
- Challenges to your ownership and custody of your business’ trade secrets
- Reputational damage that can arise in the wake of a legal challenge to your IP ownership
- Damage to your market share or revenues due to pressure or legal action from a competitor
- Failing to comply with changing local laws
- Paying unnecessarily for IP rights that are either obsolete or no longer relevant to your business plan
Although it is not a risk in the traditional sense, one of the areas we always help our clients understand is how costly it would be if opportunities to monetise or commercialise their IP assets were missed or not leveraged in the way that achieves their maximum commercial value via licensing, sales, or partnerships.
Jesper Sellin will explain more about these risks (and, of course, how best to mitigate them) at Medicon Village on Wednesday 18 October.
Register for the event here.
