How to Protect your Company’s IP – Employee Policies

Companies hold all manner of copyright (IP). Your IP can include the logo of your company, confidential machinery production process, or maybe proprietary software. Employees usually have access to most, if not all of the IP of a business. Given this, how do you guarantee that this information is not misappropriated by your staff, either using it themselves or selling it to rivals? Obviously, all business owners hope that their positions of confidence will not be violated by staff. The truth, however is that corporations must nevertheless take measures to protect themselves.

How to Protect your Company’s IP – Employee Policies

Introduction

Companies hold all manner of copyright (IP). Your IP can include the logo of your company, confidential machinery production process, or maybe proprietary software. Employees usually have access to most, if not all of the IP of a business. Given this, how do you guarantee that this information is not misappropriated by your staff, either using it themselves or selling it to rivals? Obviously, all business owners hope that their positions of confidence will not be violated by staff. The truth, however, is that corporations must nevertheless take measures to protect themselves.

 

Ways to Protect your Company’s IP

  1. Know what your intellectual property is

When all employees understand what needs to be protected, they can understand better how and against whom this should be protected. CSOs must communicate with the managers who supervise intellectual capital on an ongoing basis. At least once a quarter meeting with the CEO, COO, and representatives of HR, marketing, sales, legal, manufacturing, and R&D. Corporate management must work together to protect IP adequately.

  1. Make your intellectual property a priority

For years, CSOs that protect IP recommend the analysis of risk and cost-benefit. Make a map of the assets of your firm and determine which data would harm your enterprise most if it is lost. Then consider the most likely assets to be stolen. Combining these two factors should help you determine where your protection efforts can be best spent (and money).

  1. Valuable IP Label Valuable

Please put a banner or label on your company if the information is confidential. Please make a note on each log-in screen if the company's data is patentable. This seems banal, but you will not stand up if you do not show that you made clear that the information was protected if you want to prove someone had received information that they were not permitted to accept.

  1. Ensure both physically and digitally your intellectual property is secured

Protection of your body and digital is a must. Simple data lock the rooms, whether it's the server farm or the mouthpiece archive room. Maintain who's got the keys track. Limit access to important databases by using passwords.

  1. Know the intellectual property security instruments

For the monitoring of documents and other IP stores, an increasing range of software tools is available. The DLP tools are now a key component of several security suites. Not only can they find confidential documents, but they also monitor how and by whom they are used. In certain situations, encrypting the IP would also decrease loss risk. Egress data shows that encryption is needed for the sharing of sensitive data externally only by 21% of organizations, and only by 36 percent internally.

  1. Apply intelligence against the knowledge

How would you do if you spied on your own company? When you think of these strategies, you might imagine protecting contact lists, shredding papers in recycling bins, convening an internal committee to approve the publications of your research and development scientists, or other ideas that may be useful to your specific business.

  1. Discuss privacy expressly and selectively share details

Business owners should first exercise common sense before considering legal means of protecting IP. You have to communicate your expectations explicitly to your employees if you want certain information to be confidential. Not all workers have worked in situations where a certain amount of discretion is required.

  • How can your expectations be communicated?

First of all, consider your new employees' guidance. Be sure to explain your expectations of discretion, especially regarding any particular information or technology. Secondly, take into account the information in employee manuals. Make sure that your manual includes information on the confidentiality requirements of your company to prevent error. Thirdly, consider what training programs or refreshments you plan to do all year round.

  1. Register the intellectual property of your business as soon as possible

IP can be protected by staff or any other third party from infringement. However, in some different ways, each type of IP is protected. Copyright confers certain exclusive rights on creators of original works, including the exclusive right to reproduce the work, to execute or to distribute it. Copyright may protect the websites of your enterprise, your marketing materials, and your internal brochures, artworks, etc.

  1. Employment Agreements

You can sign an agreement on jobs before they start work when you recruit a new employee who will contribute to the company's IP. This agreement should specifically describe the IP belonging to the company and how the employee is required to process sensitive and other IP information during and after his job.

  1. Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA)

Not every IP is properly copyrighted, patented, and marked. What does the NDA have to include? Above all, the specific information to be kept confidential must be defined. You must also make reasonable use of this information, such as correct use for work purposes, including the identity of any individuals or entities with whom it is permissible to share information (vendors, perhaps). In the end, NDAs usually contain reasonable time and scope limitations. For instance, the document may observe the expiration of its terms within 3 years. A significant part of a company's strategy to protect against infringement of its IP may be the fact that employees have NDAs in addition to registering copyrights, trademarks, or patents of your company.

  1. Data Encryption as a tool

If an unauthorized user has access to a computer or network of a business and data is not encrypted, the user may steal all the information he finds immediately. Worse still you can lose business confidentiality or other IP rights if the information is made available to the public. Make sure that your information is encrypted, and make sure that they do the same if you share it with third parties. Consider including a need to store confidential information in a safe location and in encrypted format in your NDAs.

  1. Audit and Regular Tests

Make sure that your IT infrastructure – through penetration testing and network security audits – has been routinely tested to identify any safety vulnerabilities that a hacker could exploit.


 

BY-

Ankita Rathi