Featured article by Emily Peyton
(Source: Unsplash)
If your intellectual property is being stolen, violated, or otherwise used without your consent, then you might be at a loss for what you can do.
After all, your intellectual property is being violated, that’s just things that you have created yourself. However, there are some things that you can do, especially if you have an IT company, to prevent the theft of your intellectual property.
Order Them To Stop
If you have discovered that your intellectual property is being used without your consent, you can contact the offenders and send a cease and desist letter to order the users to stop using your work immediately.
The letter should include the specific actions that you want the user to take, as well as the work that is being infringed on and the type of infringement that is being done. You should also include a time limit for the person in question to respond before you take additional action.
Your IT Company Can Deal With Copyright Infringement On The Internet
If the copyright infringement of your data is being done on the internet, then you can connect with your IT department to use the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which lets you send take down notices to the service providers serving the website, as well as the host website as well.
Aside from being digital, these work just like standard cease and desist letters and should include all the information a standard letter should. Still, your IT company will be able to figure out the true owner of the website with a little digging, and then you can send the DMCA to them as well.
Your IT Company Can Use Data Loss Prevention Tools
In order to prevent more data from being lost if the leaks and violations of your intellectual property are happening more than once, you can implement data loss prevention software to monitor and control the movement of every bit of data on your network.
These tools will alert you to any theft or loss of data that might occur, and any ongoing exfiltration of your proprietary data will immediately be cut off. Plus with these tools, your internal teams will be notified of the violation and will be able to fix it.
Call in Legal Experts to Help With Patent, Trademark, or Copyright Litigation
Of course, your IT teams can do a lot, but they can’t do it alone. If you need help, then they can call in legal experts that can help you out. Trademarks, patents, and copyright are all types of intellectual property, and they can easily be stolen or used without the permission of you, the original holder.
If your efforts to handle the problem without taking legal action have done nothing and haven’t solved the problem, calling in legal experts such as those at Heer Law can be a great step for your business.
Those companies are well versed in IP litigation, both supporting your team in preventing your competitors from using your intellectual property against you, and also ensuring that your business is defended from disputes targeting you about other companies’ IPs. Reach out to them for every step of the process and they can help you when you need it.
Know That The Problem Can Be Fixed
Finally, while seeing your IPs get used all over the internet without your consent can be very frustrating, know that your team as well as a team of experts can work to fix the problem and get your intellectual property back where it belongs, which is inside your company and inside your head!
