You’ve spent years toiling away in a lab or even your garage, fine-tuning what you hope will be a million-dollar idea.
As your nest egg nears completion, you’re tempted to reach out to potential investors, or at the very least, mention your plans at an upcoming dinner party.
But instead of announcing your news, it’s at this critical juncture that you need to remember the first rule of Fight Club – which is to say, you do not talk about Fight Club.
The same premise applies to your idea.
Instead, you should first talk to Garth Leslie, an associate lawyer with the intellectual property (IP) law firm, Oyen Wiggs.
“That is the safest course of action,” Leslie explains. “Hold on to that thought and reach out to someone like us first because once that idea is out in the open, the horse is out of the barn, you can’t protect it anymore and you’re potentially losing out on your competitive advantage.”
Oyen Wiggs is Western Canada's largest independent intellectual property law firm and practices intellectual property law exclusively. These are lawyers with advanced technical training in fields including engineering, physics, software, electronics, chemistry, biotechnology and more.
Given the firm’s diversity of technical expertise outside of law, Oyen Wiggs has the foundation of knowledge required to work effectively with clients to understand and protect their innovations. The firm comprises lawyers qualified to practice law in British Columbia and registered patent and trademark agents.
Over his four years in practice, Leslie has assisted clients with hundreds of patent- and trademark-related cases. Additionally, Leslie has been involved in multiple litigation cases, some where hundreds of thousands of dollars were on the line.
Leslie notes that IP law, trademarking and patents know no boundaries in the world of commerce and can be applied to virtually any business. It’s for this reason that he recommends new businesses in particular reach out to him as they’re developing their ideas. By doing so, Leslie’s team can help navigate public disclosure considerations and guide clients through the patent application process.
“IP is a long-term strategic consideration and a lot of what new business owners are dealing with is happening in the short term,” Leslie says. “But the problem is that a lot of intellectual property requires some forethought up front in order to get the protection in the first place – you need to think about these things almost before anything else in order to ensure that you’re getting protection over it.”
Getting that protection can be supplemented by way of financial assistance through both provincial and federal grants intended specifically to launch good ideas and provide the capital needed to fund them – including funds that help cover the costs of retaining counsel from Leslie and his team.
“These grants help clients do the groundwork that’s needed to be successful in getting IP protection without all of the costs,” Leslie says. “Nine times out of 10, perhaps you don’t run into any issues. But the one time you do, it can be very costly to resolve even if it comes out in your favour.”
Start safeguarding your ideas today by visiting patentable.com.
