Any part, any component of the product manufactured by your company may be an object of intellectual property if it was previously protected by a patent. There is nothing wrong with this, you just need to take it into account in time, for which you need to order a patent purity check (this can be done in specialized legal organizations). As a result, similar products will be selected, research will be conducted and a report will be generated. If controversial situations are revealed, then most likely, it will be necessary to take into account the amount of royalties in the cost price. Such research must be carried out in all countries where your product is planned to be distributed.
If it turns out that due to your lawyer database own carelessness you violate someone's intellectual rights, then, firstly, this is fraught with lengthy legal proceedings, secondly, the products will be confiscated and their sale will be prohibited until the end of the process, and thirdly, most likely, the company will be obliged to compensate the copyright holder for losses. In addition, you can also be brought to administrative responsibility with a fine of 100 to 500 thousand rubles.
To avoid the above unpleasant consequences, you just need to take a few simple and logical steps:
Register a name and/or logo as a trademark
You should hurry with this, because when the new product finally hits the market and achieves success to one degree or another, competitors will be very closely examining whether you have managed to stake out everything (trademark, patents, names, etc.). If something is not registered in the manner prescribed by law, competitors can take advantage of this, and instead of developing marketing strategies, the company will face lengthy litigation.
In addition, there is a category of scammers called patent trolls. They track down missed trademarks, designations and quickly register them in their name. Then follows an offer to the manufacturer to buy it back, and sometimes the trolls simply silently file a lawsuit demanding a large sum of compensation. The company often finds out about this only when the bank issues a collection order to the current account to execute the court decision.
It is also useful to register a trademark in time because many retailers agree to work exclusively with legal, branded products that have all the necessary licenses and certificates. Simply put, in order not to reduce your market and not to interfere with the promotion of a new product, take care of registering the relevant rights in time.
Get your own patents
If your product (or some defining components) is not yet patented, it is necessary to do this as soon as possible. This way you will protect it from counterfeiting. You can find out about the possibility of obtaining a patent by contacting specialized organizations (they can be recommended by the relevant department). An examination of the product for patentability will be carried out. And you need to remember that you can only get these documents for your product before it is launched for sale, since one of the main criteria for issuing a certificate is the novelty of the product.
Maintaining patent purity