As a CEO, you understand the importance of protecting your company’s most valuable asset – its intellectual property (IP). While registering your IP is important, it’s not enough to protect against potential legal risks.
That’s where IP insurance comes in. It helps protect your company against infringement litigation lawsuits and other risks associated with IP. Let’s discuss why IP insurance is essential for every business and how it can help protect you from financial loss.
Intellectual property insurance has been around for about 20 years, but its existence is relatively unknown, even within the insurance industry. But with the increasing pace of technology and life sciences innovation over the last several years and increasing IP litigation, it is now gaining some interest from those looking to protect their IP assets.
There is a short list of carriers that offer coverage, and as it is a nonstandard insurance policy, the coverage varies between insurers. That said, the coverage typically revolves around licensing disputes and infringement settlements and can be a valuable way to protect your intellectual property. If you have valuable IP assets, it may be worth exploring intellectual property insurance to protect them.
Types of Intellectual Property Insurance Coverage
IP insurance is designed to cover different types of losses related to intellectual property rights, including copyright infringement, patent infringement, trademark infringement, misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of contract disputes, and more. Various types of IP insurance coverage are available to meet the needs of businesses in different industries, including abatement insurance, defense insurance, multi-parol insurance, and others.
Abatement Insurance covers any legal costs incurred while trying to enforce or defend your intellectual property rights. Defense Insurance covers legal costs associated with defending a claim against you or your company alleging infringement on someone else’s intellectual property rights. Multi-Parol Insurance protects against various claims related to patent or trademark rights, covers defense, and decreases costs and damages if awarded by the court.
Why You Need Intellectual Property Insurance
Intellectual property is one of your business’s most valuable assets, so protecting it from potential risks is essential. You could face expensive legal fees without adequate protection if someone decides to sue you for infringing on your intellectual property rights.
In addition to covering legal fees associated with such cases, having IP insurance will also help ensure that you can enforce your IP rights against infringers who may have deeper pockets than yours – significantly larger companies who can withstand costly litigation without batting an eye. With this type of coverage in place, you won’t have to worry about footing the bill for legal fees out-of-pocket should a dispute arise over your intellectual property rights.
Conclusion
Having adequate protection for your intellectual property is essential for any business. But unfortunately, many don’t realize how vulnerable their valuable asset can be without proper coverage until it’s too late.
That’s why investing in an appropriate form of IP insurance is so important – it offers peace of mind knowing that should something go wrong when defending or enforcing your intellectual property rights, there’s financial protection in place.
IP insurance helps reduce the cost burden from out-of-pocket expenses such as legal fees associated with any cases filed against you or claiming infringement on someone else’s intellectual property rights.
Investing in this type of coverage ensures that your IP is adequately protected and prepared if your business finds itself facing such disputes down the line – whether they be individuals or large corporations alike!
Rand Brenner is an IP professional whose passion is helping inventors, startups, and businesses of all sizes use licensing to turn their IP into income-producing products, services, and technologies. His decades of experience run the gamut from medical devices to food technology to consumer products. He’s licensed some of the biggest Hollywood entertainment blockbusters including the Batman Movies (1 and 2), and the number one kid’s action TV show, the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Rand speaks about licensing and is a featured speaker at investment conferences, trade shows, colleges, and startup events. His first book, Hidden Wealth: The Money Making Power of Licensing was released in 2019 and is available on Amazon.com. He’s also a published writer with articles appearing in several prestigious trade magazine including The Licensing Journal, Intellectual Property Magazine, and License India. Rand also mentors at the Cal State Fullerton School of Business and Economics and is a judge for their startup business plan competitions.