Payments Law Tool Kit

Venable / 20 19 / Venable Intellectual Property and Brand Protection Brand Protection Brand owners face many challenges in relation to managing and protecting their brands in today’s global marketplace. These challenges include combating counterfeiting, preventing diversion of products into unauthorized sales channels, and stemming the distribution of “gray market” or “parallel import” goods. To minimize the impact of loss due to counterfeits, knockoffs, or product diversion, companies should conduct an internal brand protection audit to assess how well key brands and products are secured in terms of intellectual property protection, security measures, supply chain, and distribution through authorized channels. For payments companies, competing in the market means developing and implementing the latest technologies. To protect their own intellectual property and avoid infringing the rights of others, it is important for payments companies to understand how patent, trademark, and copyright law impacts their operations. The use of these protections can help grow and protect your business, but the failure to respect others’ rights can result in significant legal exposure. Intellectual Property There are numerous intellectual property rights depending on the nature of the underlying attributes. In each case, a payments company should have a good understanding of these rights and how they may be relevant for the company’s technology, products, and services. For payments companies that develop original technology, the development of a patent portfolio can help generate revenue while protecting research and development efforts. Similarly, it is important for companies to take steps to protect their trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets. From the outset, make sure you own the rights to the intellectual property (IP) being created. If any IP is created by someone who is not an employee operating in the scope of employment, you need a written agreement in place to ensure ownership, through a work-for-hire agreement or assignment, with special nuances in some states, such as California. In addition, to limit exposure, you must also ensure appropriate clearance of content, such as appropriate licensing of music, footage, images, and other third-party content, with both traditional media and social media.