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WHY PROTECTING YOUR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY MIGHT BE THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU CAN DO

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What’s the worst that can happen if you do not protect your company’s intellectual property? Worst case scenario — you can lose everything you’ve worked so hard to build. To download the PDF article, click here . IN THE CONTEXT of a cut-throat business world, the naivety of a first-time entrepreneur or SME owner can often lead to dire consequences for the entrepreneur’s business. If intellectual property is not adequately protected, ownership in, and to, it can be lost in its entirety, or it was never actually owned at all in certain circumstances. This can leave an entrepreneur with an empty shell of an entity, gutted of its most important innards, no longer able to operate efficiently, effectively, or at all. This article explores some of the worst consequences of what may happen should a business not effectively protect their intellectual property. 1 THINK YOU OWN THE COPYRIGHT TO THE LOGO, WEBSITE OR APP YOU OUTSOURCED? THINK AGAIN If you are like most business owne...
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DO YOU OWN YOUR SHARES? YOU MIGHT NOT.

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When you purchasing and transferring shares in a private company, make sure you dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s, before later claims are made to your hard-earned success. CHALLENGE: You believe you’ve successfully purchased shares to your business, only to find out later that what you thought you owned, is not in fact yours. We’ve recently had some interesting matters at Legal Legends, in particular one relating to the purchase and transfer of shares in private companies. For eg. When you specially look after Employment Agreement , you also share and transfer shares then you feel some challenges. Private companies are those entities that are identified by the designation of (Pty) Ltd or Proprietary Limited as part of their names. The Companies Act of 2008 (the Act) defines a share as “one of the units into which the proprietary interest in a profit company is divided.” But Fidelis Oditah, a leading legal author and professor, once very usefully explained the le...
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How to Protect Your IP?

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Worried that someone might be able to wrest your intellectual property away from you? Here’s how you protect your IP.   FOR MOST businesses, ownership of the rights to a brand name, slogans, designs, content, inventions and code bases are of utmost importance for the success and value of the business. These rights are collectively known as intellectual property rights. Getting a business’ intellectual property protection wrong can be a very expensive mistake, in both the long and short run, and, whilst getting it right is not too difficult, it requires awareness of the best avenues available to protect one’s rights. Intellectual property protection quite often requires a combination of carefully constructed agreements being put in place with both internal employees and external parties to protect and enforce such rights, in conjunction with the registration of rights where possible. HOW TO AVOID THE FIVE COMMON IP MISTAKES Below are some of the common mistakes made...
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Trademark Registration Service

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A trademark is simply a sign that serves to distinguish your business’ goods or services from those of other business’ goods or services, and prevents others from using names, words, slogans, logo’s etc which are the same as, or confusingly similar to, yours. By taking a trademark registration service , you obtain the exclusive rights to use your name, slogan or logo in your industry.
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Location: South Africa
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BASIC TRADEMARK SEARCH

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If you have no idea whether your trademark may be available for registration, why not try out Legal Legend’s free basic trademark search to give you some idea of whether it may be available.
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Location: South Africa
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THE SALES THAT REALLY COUNT – HERE’S WHAT TO CONSIDER WHEN IT COMES TO CUSTOMER AGREEMENTS

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WHILE THERE ARE a number of important aspects to any customer agreement, at its core, the agreement seeks to do two ‘simple in theory’ things: regulate the extent of the liability of the company. To get customers to pay. Legal Legend’s Automated Employment Agreement Builder is a first of its kind in South Africa. The precise formats of the agreements regulating these things are varied, and all seek to achieve the same result, but, depending on the type of business, may do so through a terms of service on a website, a service level agreement or any other formal written agreement. There are several standard provisions (look to the Electronic Communications Act of 2005 for guidance) that ought to be included in any customer agreement, but, specific advice should be sought in relation to the commercial impact of legislation such as the Consumer Protection Act, the National Credit Act and the Protection of Personal Information Act (covered, to some degree, here). Speci...
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5 Common Legal Mistakes Start-Ups Make — And How To Avoid Them

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GETTING YOUR START-UP off the ground will be one of the hardest things you ever do. All the lingo about being nimble, agile and lean certainly holds water, but when executed too casually, could scupper your venture by creating unintended legal loopholes that come back to bite you many months, or years later. To equip your start-up for the unforgiving world of business, let’s explore five common legal mistakes start-ups tend to make when launching their business. NAIL DOWN YOUR FOUNDING DOCUMENTS As early as possible, you need to secure all founding documents and agreements to govern the relationship between the company and its shareholders and directors. The most important of these documents are the Shareholders Agreement and Memorandum of Incorporation. When your start-up is making the big moola — which we all hope it does — issues between shareholders become very real. Ensuring that you have the right mechanisms in place to solve shareholder or director issues will gi...
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