Protecting Your Light Bulb Moment: Why All Entrepreneurs Must Defend Intellectual Property

Entrepreneurship entails a lot of things: motivation, innovation, resourcefulness, and so on. Ultimately, though, it all comes down to ideas. Entrepreneurs have great ideas that they seek to turn into lucrative business opportunities. So, let’s talk about the logistical aspect of monetizing those great ideas. Specifically, how do you protect your ideas from competitors or, worse, those who would pass your amazing idea off as their own?

You may be wondering the difference between various means of intellectual property protection, including copyright, patents, and trademarks. Let’s dive deep into these various processes and see which is best for your business.

Your Business Relies on Intellectual Property

First, let’s go over the core concept of intellectual property. As the name suggests, intellectual property is an intangible idea or process that belongs to you and your business. Early in your entrepreneurial journey, you may have heard (ill-conceived) advice to not worry about others stealing your ideas. I’ve even heard people say that only amateurs fear intellectual property theft. Well, that’s obviously not the case, or business owners around the world would not bother filing patents or trademarks.