All entrepreneurs, authors, creators are concerned by intellectual or industrial property, whether for ongoing projects; during the creation of a company, a product or a brand and during the different stages of its evolution. Intellectual property protection is vital because it allows your creations to be protected from counterfeiting, so you can secure a monopoly of exploitation and benefit from future income (the transfer of rights to an intellectual property, a licensing agreement, etc.).
The right strategy to protect your brand
Firstly, if you don't have a lot of means, make the purchase of a domain name as much as possible, this with the name of your brand, in order to get cyberquatting (cyberquatting in French) and to have a web space. To begin, it is essential to buy a .fr and a .com, a good beginning of exploitation and legal protection. It is very easy to access a domain name, it costs a maximum of 7 to 10 euros per year.
The Soleau envelope
This solution can certainly be interesting to prove that you are the first to have invented the brand, the label or the product. This being the case, the website is more relevant than the latter thanks to the domain name with your brand name. However, in complementarity with the website, it represents an interesting legal proof for your creation, your brand or your label, if you have a small budget. It will cost you 15 euros (5 years of conservation at the INPI or National Institute of Industrial Property).
How to protect your intellectual property?
Intellectual property protection can be done in two ways. The protection of an industrial property is done through a model, patent or invention registration. A patent application allows the protection of a process or a product. The latter gives the inventor a monopoly of exploitation for a period of twenty years. As far as the registration of a trademark is concerned, it gives the inventor a monopoly of exploitation for a renewable period of ten years. As regards the registration of a model or design, its author enjoys a monopoly of exploitation for a renewable period of five years. Intellectual property can also be protected through copyright. To acquire the latter, no specific formalities are necessary. As the author of an original artistic or literary work, you benefit from copyright protection.