Earlier this month the UK Intellectual Property Office released a series of guides setting out the most important factors to consider when expanding your intellectual property rights internationally.
These guides offer insight into protecting and exploiting your intellectual property rights (including copyright, trade marks, designs and patents) in Turkey, Brazil, China, India, South Korea, South Africa, USA and Vietnam.
UK and EU businesses should be aware that each of the above jurisdictions may be suitable for export of their products. Manufacturing products in these territories may also be easier and/or cheaper, or there may be a great demand for your products there. As such, licensing your intellectual property rights to manufacturers or distributors within those territories may be beneficial to your business.
Although professional advice will usually be required when exploiting intellectual property rights in these jurisdictions, a business owner aware of how such rights are exploited, the common issues which may arise when operating in these territories and the likely safeguards that should be in place prior to expanding abroad often makes the process more streamlined and efficient.
A full list of the UK Intellectual Property Office guides can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/ip-protection-abroad-country-guides.
If you do wish to exploit your intellectual property rights abroad, we advise that you contact us and review the above guides as early on in the expansion process as possible. Having the right advice at the appropriate stage of the process will prevent issues arising later on.
We also have a broad network of local legal agents within each of the above jurisdictions who provide our clients with advice on local law.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.