Anti-piracy refers to the measures taken by the government and businesses to deter malicious entities from copying and distributing intellectual property without the owner’s permission.
The popular anti-piracy measures include registering trademarks, patenting, and securing copyright. Businesses can also register their domain, keep their discoveries a secret, or obtain a plant breeder’s right to guard against plagiarism.
How Brands Protect Intellectual Property
As mentioned above, there are various measures you can take to protect your intellectual property against piracy. It’s crucial to note that the particular anti-piracy measure you undertake depends on the kind of property you wish to protect. In certain instances, you will require more than one measure to secure your intellectual property fully.
Here are 7 anti-piracy measures one can take to safeguard their intellectual inventions against piracy:
1. Copyrighting their work
Copyright protection is suitable for tangible and intangible creative expressions such as artwork, books, and online publications. If yours is literary fiction and non-fiction work, musical scores and records, sculptures, painting work and drawings, dance choreography, computer codes, and written emails, you could copyright them.
Obtaining a copyright bars others from duplicating your materials unless they obtain permission from you. It gives you the right to sue anyone for infringing the copyright.
2. Registering trademarks
Companies implement trademarks or trade names on imagery, word, logo, phrase, or all the marks associated with a brand. These are the marks that identify a brand uniquely. If the company sells services, the trademark is termed a service mark. Companies may not necessarily register a trademark. However, in case of a lawsuit, the authorities will ask your company to prove that it was the first to adopt the service mark. It’s also necessary to show that your company has used this mark often in the open when promoting its products or services. The trademark protection is only valid within the state where you registered the mark.
3. Keeping trade secrets
As the name suggests, it involves keeping a secret about your idea. It’s however not a very secure way of protecting your intellectual property. This is because it rides on the assumption that no other person will figure out the details about your creation even if they use it. By any chance you decide to patent it, the authorities will require you to disclose the details of the invention.
4. Applying for patents
Patents are suitable methods of securing an invention, for instance, a new machine. Nevertheless, patents can also be applied to protect innovative processes, materials, and modifications of known designs. An invention can be a product or process that solves a defined problem. To register your innovation for a patent, you have to prove that it hasn’t been used anywhere else in the world. By acquiring a patent for your creation, you gain a monopoly on it for a specified duration.
5. Design registration
Companies can register designs to prevent others from copying the physical features or the general appearance of their invention. Your company should apply for design registration before it hits the market. Most jurisdictions give such designs a unique number that owners can display on the item to indicate that it’s illegal to replicate it.
It’s, however, crucial to note that design registration doesn’t protect the functionalities of an item. This means that another person may still create something that functions like yours, as long as it doesn’t look like your registered item. If you wish to safeguard the design’s unique functions, consider acquiring a patent as well.
6. Plant breeder’s rights
If you are a specialist in plant breeding, you could acquire plant breeder’s rights to protect a new plant species that you bred. Once you gain this right, you are the only one with permission to propagate and harvest materials from the specified plant. It simply means no one else can cut stems or flowers, harvest fruits, and foliage.
7. Circuit layout rights
If you’ve invented a unique integrated circuit for an electronic component, you can protect it from plagiarism by obtaining the circuit layout rights. For instance, it could be a unique way of laying the parts in computer chips or semiconductors. These chips or semiconductors could be for computer-operated devices and equipment such as medical instruments or household items. It’s important to demonstrate that the layout design is original. Circuit layout rights function just like copyright. As a result, the rights become valid as soon as the design is out.
Wrapping Up
Even if you’ve already registered your work with the relevant authorities, it doesn’t mean that malicious users won’t attempt to steal it. The best way to keep copycats at bay is by monitoring your materials. A reliable SERP scraper can help you prevent unauthorized use of copyright material.
Scraping Google search results can help you to detect piracy cases quickly and effectively. You’ll scrape data as evidence and use it to sue those infringing your copyright rights.
Read more:
What is anti-piracy?
