Tips for protecting the property and information rights of your small business

One of the main reasons that we enjoy a thriving economy today is our ability to do business as we see fit. In any country that supports free commerce, the standard of living and general well being of its citizens is better than those countries that don't.Part of doing business is to protect the business from intentional and unintentional harm. There are many diverse ways that harm can come to a small business. It can come from within your organization and without. An essential part of a business strategy is to be knowledgeable about how to protect the assets of your business, and put a plan into action to do so.

One of the most valuable assets to many businesses is their intellectual property. This kind of property is different than a more tangible asset, such as a building, a vehicle, or a computer. This kind of property can include trade secrets, writings, instructions, databases, in house developed software, inventions, or other non-tangible assets.This type of information, depending on the type of business, could be one of the most important assets of your business. For example, a free lance software developer works with information. He owns computers, and purchased development software, but his biggest asset is the actual software that he develops, and his tool kits that he has developed in order to help him produce his product. If his information were lost due to a disaster, such as a fire or unauthorized copies of some of his work were distributed by a dishonest customer, then it would be devastating to his business. If a professional photographer loses all his pictures because he failed to make a backup of his data, then his product is gone.

Here are some tips for protecting your intellectual property:
- Apply for a patent if you intellectual property can qualify as an invention.
- Make sufficient backups of your information. Spread out your backups so they are not all in the same building.
- Make your employees frequently read and sign an ethics policy which prohibits them from divulging trade secrets and proliferating company information without permission.
- Have proof of copyright. All software, pictures, writings, music, or anything that could be copied, under today's laws and international treaties, are automatically considered copy righted. However, you should always put a copyright notice on your work, and have other means to prove that the works belong to you and your business.
- Use sufficient network and application security so that hackers and unauthorized employees cannot steal your information. If your information is in paper or tangible form, lock it up!
- Ask your customers to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Not only is this a legal document, by asserting your right to the information, you will discourage your customers from making unauthorized copies of your intellectual property. You may have noticed that all CDs and DVDs have an FBI warning against unauthorized duplication. This does not prevent duplication, but it will appeal to the customer's sense of honesty.
- Get legal advice from an attorney who knows about intellectual rights, or a legal service that works with small businesses.
You should also take reasonable measures to protect your tangible property:
- Use a security system. If your building is big enough, use proximity badges for your employees, and restrict access to vulnerable areas. Security cameras and hard disk video recorders are cheap these days. You can even view your cameras remotely from the internet.
- Review your insurance policies regularly to make sure you are adequately covered.
- If your business has a lot of computer equipment, consider hiring a data center to store your equipment, or use theirs.

Take reasonable precautions, but don't go overboard either. Don't become dogmatic and shackle your business with a lot of unreasonable hoops to jump through when there is little benefit.