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As a business, there are many different angles from which challenges can emerge.

Currently, all eyes are on the economy as an impending recession continues to break over the UK. But vigilance is key in all directions, and there is one that is once again becoming a significant topic of conversation: brand protection. What is it, and why does it matter to your business?

What is Brand Protection?

In a nutshell, brand protection is the taking of steps to preserve aspects of your brand for your own business. Your brand encompasses a multiplicity of things, from the shape of your company logo to the design of the products or systems you sell, and even the tenets that make your company’s identity or ethos.

Brand protection is an overarching term, that covers a wide variety of instances and examples. One such example, that is a good entry point to understanding the concept as a whole, is that of patents. If someone invents a unique product and doesn’t get it patented, someone else could come along and copy the work.

Another example is in art, where “intellectual property” (IP) like the work of illustrators and graphic designers could be stolen and copied by another bad actor. This is a prescient example, as developments in AI have seen machine-learning image generators “learning” from the copyrighted work of established illustrators and publishers, potentially infringing copyright in the process.

What are the Risks and Consequences of Damage to Your Brand?

The problem is a plain to see and easy to understand; no one likes having something stolen from them. But when it is something a little more abstract, it can be difficult to see the exact nature of harm done to victim businesses or individuals.

There are several ways, though, in which intellectual property theft or other such infractions can harm a business. For one, profits can be lost to copycat businesses or brands, as consumers get confused between brand options. Indirectly, profits can be harmed where copycat brands act against your brand and its values – a point well made by Twitter’s recent changes to the blue tick, that saw copycat accounts (legally) wipe billions off the stock market.

What Can You Do to Protect Your Brand?

So, what are the solutions to the problem? Litigation is the driving force behind compliance in IP and data protection spheres, where counsel and representation from legal professionals specialising in copyright law can help deter illegal attempts to steal, interpolate or profit from any aspect of your brand. Civil cases surrounding IP and brand theft can incur high legal and compensatory costs, minimising the number of bad actors willing to take the risk.

But in order to benefit from this as a possibility, you would need to engage with protective legal frameworks relating to relevant aspects of your brand. This would include applying for patents to protect your unique designs or innovations, trademarking specific iterations of your brand identity and copywriting unique intellectual properties.

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