REPORTBACK TRENDS
Digitally protecting your intellectual property helps safeguard future business success In today’s increasingly knowledge-based economies, intellectual property holds value because of its ability to generate future profits and wealth, as it fuels innovation and growth. Therefore, it is logical that companies need to take precautions to safeguard their intellectual property. By Richard Broeke, MD: Securicom
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ne definition of intellectual property is as follows: “Law: property that results from original creative thought, as patents, copyright material, and trademarks, OR an individual product of original creative thought.” Protecting an intangible asset As may be seen from the above, whether it is a legal or non-legal definition, original creative thinking is an integral part of intellectual property, meaning that it is an intangible asset which may take many forms. Some of the most well-known forms of intellectual property include copyrights (covering literary and artistic works in a wide-ranging manner, including novels, films, music, website pages, photographs and architectural design); patents (rights granted to inventors that allow them to exclude all others from making, using or
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SECURITY FOCUS AFRICA MAY 2021
selling their invention for a specified time frame); trademarks (such as the Nike swoosh symbol); trade secrets (for example, a chemical formula for a new medicinal drug, or any other data that gives the user an advantage over their competitors); IT software; and proprietary products and parts. Moving on from this, it is easy to understand that intellectual property may be more valuable than a company’s physical assets. In today’s information age, intellectual property may represent a competitive advantage and, as a result, should be carefully protected by the companies by which it is owned. However, intellectual property today needs to be guarded by more than simply walls, doors and locked safes. Picture this: 100 years ago, a firm’s science or engineering department would have been dealt a severe blow if faced with the physical theft of blueprints
depicting a prototype invention with pending patents. Today, we think of a hacker accessing the copyrighted source code of a software development company’s flagship program. In each instance, intellectual property has been compromised. As a specialist managed IT security services company, Securicom provides holistic protection and intelligent monitoring for IT infrastructure, from the core and beyond. The securing of your intellectual property is one of our main tenets. The hidden costs of compromised intellectual property It is important to secure your intellectual property, both physically and digitally. Physical protection has been understood for as long as people have been interested in stealing others’ great ideas to use to their own advantage. Digital protection,
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