Protecting Your Intellectual Property (IP) – What Every Business Owner Should Know
- Your Legal Team
- Aug 25
- 4 min read
Whether you’ve created a brand, written content, developed software, or designed a product — it’s all intellectual property (IP). And if you’re not protecting it, someone else could benefit from your hard work, or worse — try to copy or claim it.
As a small business, freelancer, or startup, protecting your IP isn’t a luxury — it’s a foundation. It gives you control, commercial value, and credibility in the market.
In this guide, Your Legal Team breaks down the essentials of IP for UK businesses: what it is, how to protect it, and what to do if someone copies you.
What is Intellectual Property?
Intellectual property (IP) refers to creations of the mind that carry value for your business.
This includes:
• Names, logos, taglines - your brand identity
• Written content - blogs, reports, product descriptions
• Visual content - photos, graphics, videos, packaging
• Software and code
• Products and inventions
• Processes, formulas, recipes
• Designs and layouts
• Music, jingles, recordings
• Business ideas and know-how, including confidential information
IP is often your business’s most valuable asset — especially if you’re in a creative, tech, or brand-driven sector.
Types of Intellectual Property, and How to Protect Them
There are four main legal types of IP protection in the UK:
1. Copyright
This covers written content, images, music, video, software, and more, and applies automatically when the work is created.
You don’t need to register copyright in the UK — but you should still:
Keep dated records of when it was created
Include copyright notices (e.g. “© Your Legal Team Ltd 2025”)
Use contracts to control how others use your content
Copyright typically lasts 70 years after the creator’s death.
2. Trademarks
Unlike copyright, trademarks must be registered. They can be used for business names, logos, slogans, colours, jingles — anything that distinguishes your brand.
To fully protect your brand, you must register a trademark with the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO). Otherwise, someone else could register it first — and stop you using it.
Trademark benefits:
Exclusive legal rights to your brand
Stops copycats
Adds value to your business if you sell it later
Helps with online brand enforcement for things like social media take-downs.
You can register one from around £170. It’s affordable — and very worth it.
3. Design Rights
Sometimes these are applied automatically; others require registration. These rights cover the look and feel of products, packaging, logos, and more — including shape, patterns, configuration, or decoration.
There are two kinds:
Unregistered design rights protect 3D designs automatically for up to 10–15 years
Registered design rights provide stronger protection for up to 25 years, and must be registered with the IPO
If design is part of your business value, consider registering it.
4. Patents
These require registration, and in this case it can be quite expensive. Patents are used to protect inventions and technical processes — things that are new, innovative, and capable of industrial application.
Patents are powerful, but are expensive to obtain (from £4,000+ in legal fees), and typically take 1-3 years to process. It is important to protect confidentiality during this time - see our blog on non-disclosure agreements.
They’re most relevant to businesses in engineering, manufacturing, biotech, and product development.
For most SMEs, trademarks and copyright are the key protections to focus on first.
Common IP Mistakes SMEs Make
❌ Not checking if your brand name is already trademarked
❌ Assuming a domain name or company registration gives you IP rights
❌ Using a designer’s logo or website without clear ownership in writing
❌ Publishing original content without copyright notices
❌ Letting freelancers or contractors retain IP rights to what they’ve made for you
❌ Ignoring copycats because legal action “feels expensive”
These can all be avoided with a bit of early support and smart documentation.
How to Make Sure You Own Your IP
Owning IP isn’t automatic in all cases. Some key steps:
📄 Use contracts that assign IP rights to you; especially important when working with freelancers, consultants, and agencies
💼 Make sure employees’ contracts state that IP created in the course of employment belongs to your business
🔍 Check that your brand isn’t infringing someone else’s trademark before you invest in logos, websites or marketing
📁 Keep records of creation dates and authorship
If you don’t get this right, you might not legally own the work you’ve paid for.
What If Someone Copies You?
If someone uses your logo, text, images, designs or products without permission, you may be able to:
• Send a cease and desist letter
• Report them to platforms like Amazon, Instagram or Etsy
• Take legal action for infringement
• Claim compensation or damages
Often, a formal letter from a legal team is enough to stop the copying quickly — and assert your rights without escalating things.
Protecting Your Brand Online
In addition to legal registration, there are practical steps you can take to safeguard your brand online:
• Monitor your brand name on Google and social media
• Set up Google Alerts
• Use watermarking or metadata in your content
• Report infringing posts or accounts
• Include clear IP clauses in your website terms
We Can Help
At Your Legal Team, we support UK businesses in:
• Registering trademarks and designs
• Drafting copyright and IP ownership clauses
• Reviewing contracts with designers, developers and freelancers
• Enforcing your rights when someone copies you
• Doing IP audits before you sell or raise investment
Whether you’re building a brand or developing a product, we’ll make sure your IP is working for you — not being left vulnerable.
💬 Need to protect your IP or deal with copycats?
Let’s have a quick chat about your business and your brand.
