The key to business success, at least prolonged success, is innovation. It can never stop. No matter how good a company’s first or most popular product is, they have to keep striving to come up with new ideas that change the market yet again.
It’s a tall order. But it’s the best way to keep consumers engaged. It creates demand for your products. If all your company does is sell one item that has been the same forever, there’s no reason for consumers to buy more. The demand tops out and sales decrease.
As one CEO put it in Smart Business: “In order to increase demand, businesses need to continue innovating and developing new products and services.”
These new products, then, are perhaps even more important than your core products that you have been putting out for years. Equally important is having brand new ideas, full of creativity and innovation, to push the market. Before those products ever make it to store shelves, these ideas themselves are valuable.
They’re just one form of intellectual property. You need to protect the ideas, designs and blueprints from the competition. You have a right to your unique ideas. Theft of an idea is just as real as the theft of a physical product.
So, with the success of your company perhaps riding on it, what should you do if someone does take your intellectual property? If they copy your ideas, products, designs and patented information, then you need to know what legal steps to take. Remember that you do have rights, and you can take action when anything threatens the future of your business.
