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Author: Ruth Klein

How to Profit From Intellectual Assets You May Not Know You Have

"Finders, keepers. Losers, weepers." The law of the playground has suddenly taken on new meaning in the business world, especially for small businesses and sole proprietors when it comes to intellectual asset management.

The stuff of copyrights, trademarks and licensing agreements, long the domain of the biggest corporations, can prove just as profitable for small firms who learn how to protect and promote "intellectual" assets that may be as close at hand as your new way of compiling customer profiles.

Intellectual asset (property) management is not just about hot new products; it's about new ideas and innovations that improve on existing goods and services. It's all a matter of "finders, keepers," which can be just as easy for the smallest firms to play as it is for the largest.

In the course of doing business, have you developed a marketing process that works better than the traditional way of marketing goods or services? Did your office assistant come up with a new "Eureka!" about how to keep tabs on customer (client) habits? Did you add two new steps to a production process that created more cost-efficiencies?

Look deeper. Is the way your service or product brand worth protecting? Can it become a profit generator by co-branding with another company? Inc. magazine in its May editions cited the case of Starbucks licensing its name to Jim Beam for a new liqueur, and Harley-Davidson partnering with Coca-Cola to reap millions of dollars in royalties from products incorporating both names.

Is what you know innovative (different) and would it be valuable to someone else? If your answer is yes, learn how to protect and profit from these assets or risk joining the ranks of "losers, weepers."

Four additional tips to keep in mind:

1. Industry reports cite the growing number of Intellectual Property (IP) lawyers courting small firms instead of traditional big business clients. Go to Google.com and type in "IP lawyers" along with your state or city's name. Some IP law firm Web sites carry free articles on IP trends.

2. If you're in the development stage of an innovative new process, idea or product, and have employed outside help, consider the use of a confidentially agreement, or Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA), to protect your asset from the start. One smart article on how NDAs work is at About.com, a product of the New York Times Co., at http://management.about.com/cs/ipandpatents/a/NDA062199.htm?p=1.

3. Don't let your assets loose, even inadvertently, through outgoing emails. Sandhills Publishing Company's www.processing.com discusses ways to safeguard outgoing email processes at www.processor.com/mirapoint-Inc.

4. Consider an outside sleuth to help you find your hidden intellectual assets. Have you ever enlisted the help of a friend to help you find a misplaced item? Invariably, you'll hear, "Well, there it is, right in front of your nose." Outside consultants with keen expertise and sharp insights into how to spot potential intellectual assets can prove exponentially more valuable to your bottom line than that sharp-eyed friend.

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