Intellectual property is one of the greatest drivers of value in any business, but it can also be a huge headache for corporate IP counsels. Sometimes it can feel a little bit like driving a train. While everything’s going well, nobody notices, no one worries about it, and no one thanks you for keeping the train on the tracks. But as soon as there’s a mistake, it’s a disaster!
Keeping your IP portfolio on track often seems like an unending management task. Each element that contributes to managing IP may be fairly straightforward. But in the aggregate, there are so many moving parts that eventually, something is almost certain to go wrong.
What if there was a way to ease that stress? What if someone else could worry about managing IP for you? If that was possible, corporate IP counsel could focus on the core of their role – deciding strategy, advising the business on risk and opportunity, and making a real difference.
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Brandstock can take that responsibility on for you. If you decide to engage Brandstock using its Complete Service, then more or less your entire IP portfolio management can be put into the hands of a trusted partner, and one that’s fully integrated with your internal functions and the way you are currently managing IP.
Imagine you have a new product for which you want to develop and maintain a brand. You need a name for it. Brandstock can help manage that name creation project.
You’ve developed a name in conjunction with Brandstock, and now you need to secure the relevant IP assets. Brandstock can manage that process too, either in collaboration with your existing external counsel network or through its own network of preferred suppliers. Either way, managing IP has become a lot easier.
So you have your IP – now you need to maintain it and check that no one infringes against it. Brandstock can handle all your renewals, assignments and recordals for you, as well as securing any relevant domain names and guiding your strategy going forward. Brandstock can also represent you before courts and at IP offices across Europe (including at the European Court of Justice), and where Brandstock lawyers themselves can’t represent you, they have trusted local partners who can.
You also get the benefit of Brandstock’s watching service, which analyses competing marks and any problematic domain names to provide you with a list of only those issues which need a decision from you. You no longer have to wade through countless irrelevant reports on marks that don’t cause you a problem. Rather, you know that anything you hear about is important, and that it’s accompanied by a robust local opinion on your chances of success with a particular course of action.
Still, even with the best protection and preparation available, there’s a good chance that at some point you will identify infringement of some sort. Brandstock’s monitoring service provides a great base for you to identify and gather evidence of infringement, including making test purchases so you don’t have to, in order to build a case and inform the next steps.
Managing IP is an exercise in reducing risk and maximizing value. Doing it effectively can also be an exercise in detail – in making sure all your bases are covered, all your boxes ticked and all your potential threats monitored. This is an exhausting and exhaustive process, and one which in-house IP departments may not have the resources to manage effectively. With Brandstock, you know you have a partner who understands what your IP means to your business, and understands the level of care required to manage that IP.
If you want to keep the train on the tracks, but you don’t want to be constantly worrying about keeping the train on the tracks, there is a solution that means you can stop worrying! Contact Brandstock to find out more about how managing IP can be effective and stress-free.
