International Intellectual Property Legal Blog

Learning of a business dispute that is happening in your company can be highly disconcerting. Depending on the severity of the dispute, who it involves and what it is about, such disagreements can have a debilitating effect on organizational processes that ultimately affect productivity and success. At Bilicki Law, we have been able to help concerned business owners in New York to solve issues within their organization. 

One of the biggest challenges of operating a business is creating an environment where people can work well together. This requires you to implement policies designed to promote tolerance, as well as responsibility and professionalism in accomplishing business objectives. Your efforts can help to reduce conflict before it even begins. However, in the situations where a dispute does arise, the sooner you can detect it, intervene and provide a solution, the more effective you will be at minimizing its impact. 

Keeping important information from getting into the wrong hands is imperative to your company's protection and success. While you can monitor who has access to confidential information in order to minimize their exposure, it is also important for your company, especially if you have an International presence, to implement protocols designed to keep your most sensitive information private. 

Being aware of the steps that can be taken to more effectively protect trade secrets and other valuable information is only the beginning of keeping your company safe. Once protocols are in place, they should be regularly analyzed to determine that they are working optimally. Frequent analysis can help you identify areas where additional support is necessary to prevent loopholes from creating hazards. 

In 2013, Uber grew from a $330 million company to a worth of $3.5 billion due to venture capital investments. However, before pursuing the additional funding, Uber’s co-founder decided to do some tax-planning. According to Fortune, the ridesharing company created a new business in the Netherlands known as Uber International C.V., which essentially moved the company’s intellectual property overseas.

U.S.-based Uber then created an agreement to split profits in half. Thus, when venture capitals sped up Uber’s growth process, it could legally avoid paying taxes on almost all of its non-U.S. rideshare income. Fortune reports that Google and Facebook employed similar strategies for similar reasons. In fact, American companies often find it easier to move their IPs overseas than relocating a physical subsidiary. For tech companies, where so much of their core business takes place online, there is hardly ever a need to attempt a physical move.

Filing a patent in America is easier and less expensive than it is in most other countries. However, it is neither easy nor cheap. The United States Patent and Trademark Office has several guidelines in place that inventors must follow or their claims will be rejected time and time again. One of the major criteria patents must satisfy is novelty. An idea must be new to be accepted. Commercial use of the idea, public disclosures and even articles may undermine the ability to patent an idea.

Another key contributor to success is the temperament of an inventor’s allies. Filing a patent is not a submit-it-and-forget-it system. It may require frequent follow-ups and tweaks, which tacks on time and money. This makes it especially important to work with professionals that are patient and can handle high-stress situations as well as high levels of uncertainty.