inellectual property (IP) Archives - Blog | Trademarkmaldives

During the ongoing COVID-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic, most of the business firms, organizations, and startups across the globe are working remotely; however, this precaution may increase the risk of loss of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) for such companies.

As professionals and experts are nowadays making the most out of social media platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn, and video calling tools such as Zoom and Skype – brands and businesses need to know and understand that these online tools and platforms may not cater to some of the controls that are usually incorporated in traditional in-person meetings. For instance, there may be a few unexpected participants on your Skype group video call. Moreover, a person may even record your online presentations without your knowledge.

It is a matter of fact that yes – online platforms indeed make it a lot more convenient to distribute and share business material with other employees; however, they also increase the potential risk of adverse consequences. For instance, if the details of a unique innovation are shared without restriction or posted online, then the potential Patent Rights associated with the innovation may be lost as well. In the scenario of trade secrets, once the cat is out of the bag, it can never be put inside, no matter what. It becomes exceedingly arduous to maintain the terms of confidentiality if the trade secret somehow becomes known to the public.

A few examples of trade secrets include financial information, customer lists, engineering data, manufacturing processes, chemical compositions, and recipes. As per various recent reports by the Intellectual Property (IP) experts, trade secrets having a worth of billions of dollars are stolen electronically ever year in the United States alone. Hence, without any second thoughts, it has now become more crucial to take all the required steps and mitigate such losses.

Now, there’s a dire need to make ourselves familiar with a few ways using which the business firms and organizations can stay safe and secure in the ongoing situation. One essential strategy lies in making the employees aware of all the risks involved in working remotely. Brands and businesses can proactively take a few simple measures such as creating internal policies, describing the topics appropriate for online meetings well in advance, determining and limiting the online audience, and restricting the dissemination of sensitive and confidential information, along with exploring different platforms for sharing and presenting such information. Additionally, companies can also make the most out of non-disclosure agreements for managing sensitive conversations with third-parties. They can even consider requiring registrations for their streaming presentations and asking all the participants to give their introduction at the beginning of the meeting itself so that they can conveniently identify the people in the room, including the ones off-screen. For more visit: https://www.trademarkmaldives.com