Step-by-step plan: Protecting a product, service, or invention
Do you have an idea for a new product, service or invention? How do you know if your idea really is new in the market? And how do you prevent someone else from using your idea and pretending it belongs to them? Take the following steps to test your idea and protect it if it is original.
First, make sure your idea for a product, service or invention does not already exist. Do this before developing the idea further. It is important you keep our idea a secret at this time. There are several ways to investigate:
- Check if your idea is already protected by intellectual property rights. Such as the Espacenet patent database for technical innovations and the design register for designs. But also check the trademark register if you have come up with a name for your product.
- Search the internet and (online) shops for similar ideas. Perhaps your innovation already exists. Or perhaps someone else is already using the same name to offer a similar product or service.
- Go to trade shows and browse (online) trade magazines and literature to find new products and services.
Does the idea already exist? Then see if you can give it your own twist, so that you are still unique in the market. This could be with a different design or technique, for example, or with a different brand.
Are you sure your new product or service does not exist yet? Then research if people want to buy your product or service. Market research will help you find out. Just be careful when doing market research that you do not reveal an idea that you still want to protect.
Only after you have developed your idea can you protect it with IP rights. Are you waiting to develop your idea? Or will it take you a while to work it out? You can already register your idea in an i-DEPOT. The i-DEPOT stores your idea and dates it. This gives you proof that you came up with it and on what date. But this does not offer the same protection as registering intellectual property.
Intellectual Property, or IP rights (Intellectueel Eigendom, IE), is the collective name for the right to new, developed ideas. You can protect your product or service with several IP rights. Such as product with a novel technique and new design. You can protect that with a patent (octrooi in Dutch) and a design right. See the different types of IP rights.
You cannot register all IP rights. Copyright, for example, exists automatically on creation. In that case, it is useful if you have evidence with a date such as publication or registration with the Benelux Office for Intellectual Property (BOIP).
Would you like to share your idea with, for example, investors or staff? But have you not recorded or registered your idea yet? Then use a confidentiality statement, also known as a non-disclosure agreement or NDA, to keep the information secret. Or include the information in a cooperation agreement.
If you protect your company secrets like this, they will be covered by the Trade Secret Protection Act (Wet bescherming bedrijfsgeheimen, Wbb). If anybody steals or reveals your company secrets, you can take them to court.
Once you have taken all the necessary steps to protect your product or service, it’s time to market it. See the steps to introduce a product on the Dutch market.
You can also license your product. This gives someone permission to make and market the product. You can charge a fee for this.