The Modern Founder’s Imperative: Essential Literacy of Intellectual Property

With the rise of artificial intelligence, there is an impression that countless jobs will be lost. Many people believe that although the jobs will be lost universally, there will be a rise of entrepreneurs or growth of small businesses. With this new notion, it is greatly important for the boutique to mid-sized business owners to understand intellectual property law. While big companies can support themselves with a legal team, a boutique business owner or new entrepreneur who is just getting into the relevant industry must have a general knowledge about intellectual property law to protect their rights. Therefore, this article will put light into the definition of intellectual property law with examples to find more relevance with practical life. In simple words, the definition of intellectual property is ‘creation of mind’; any property – tangible, intangible which is created by someone’s intellect is intellectual property.

In Bangladesh, intellectual property is protected by the Copyright Act, 2000, according to the Copyright Act, when a person holds “the right to do or grant the right to do reproduction of a work (still or moving), whether two-dimensional, three-dimensional or surreal, in the form of writing, sound recording, film, graphic image or any other material nature or digital signal, using letters, images, sounds or any other medium” is called the holder of copyright. In general terms that person is the actual owner of the intellectual property. When a person publishes or fixes the creation in a tangible or digital medium; his/her creations such as poems, literature, and books are automatically considered protected under Copyright law.

However, in case of tangible property, the intellectual property right has to be registered in the appropriate institution. In regards to the company, it can have multiple intellectual properties such as primarily the brand name, the mark of the logo and so on. The Trademark Act 2009 facilitates the procedures of registering the intellectual properties of the company as mentioned.

Since, there is a boom of solo entrepreneurship or entrepreneurship in general, many founders often ignore the fact of registering the trademark of the brand name and logo mark. Often these legal protections can be deemed as a burden or hassle as this is technical knowledge of law. But when a company decides to register the trademark of the brand name and/or logo mark, they must submit an application to the particular jurisdictional institution.
The name of the brand name, the logo has to be a distinctive design. A trademark maybe registered in respect of a certain class of goods or service by complying with the requirements determined for the respective class or classes.
The intellectual property rights are only established through registration to that concerned institution by the claimed proprietor of that creation, if someone has applied for a registration and if the application is pending or has not been accepted yet, then the copyright has not been established yet under the applicant. So, the companies/individuals must ensure the application has been accepted for their copyright; to prevent breach.

Therefore, until the concerned Trademark office provides a certification of confirmation, the company or the individual person does not hold the legal right to the brand name, logo mark or any other creation such as any certain kind of product it claims to be the owner. According to the Trademark Act 2009, the registration of a trademark shall be for a period of seven years, but may be renewed from time to time thus once the trademark is registered one cannot get rid of their responsibilities and consider this registration for lifetime.

Following the opinion of the business experts, E-Commerce is the future given that, to fully enjoy the recent facilitation of the policy for business owners to sell their products in Amazon marketplaces and Alibaba, emerging entrepreneurs must take into consideration of registering the rights of their company and the uniquely designed products in accordance to the concerned jurisprudence. If a Bangladesh startup founder is selling product in USA Amazon marketplace, she/he must register their trademarks such as brand name, logo and if the company/individual claims to design or own a certain product that must be registered and protected under the intellectual property laws and treaties; failing to comply with the legal procedures will allow others to claim the rights and eventually implies an statement of abandonment of company/individual’s so called rights on the creation.

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