AXIS conducts investigations of intellectual property – creations of the mind for which exclusive rights to a variety of intangible assets are recognised. The most common types of intellectual property are designs, processes, pricing information or customer lists. For many organisations, intellectual capital is one of their prime assets; hence the theft of such property can seriously impact profitability and competitive advantage. It is imperative to move quickly to establish what assets have been stolen for immediate countermeasures. AXIS provides discreet fact gathering services and other investigative techniques (often involving the use of specialised ground investigations) needed to resolve the situation promptly, and advise the client of immediate actions that need to be taken to cushion the effects of theft.
Theft of intellectual property may also include the spreading of malicious rumours or harmful allegations that can be of serious consequence to the image of the company. With our experience and knowledge in the business environment, we provide your business information and consultation on time sensitive situations that need decisive decisions to be made in response to the alleged rumours.
Loses as a result of Intellectual Property infringements can occur from many sources including employees, competitors or would-be competitors. A recent phenomenon in this area is when mass-manufacturers study the success of a patent or copyright owners’ product design. They then replicate the design immediately and flood the market with inferior and potentially dangerous copied products. This could apply to the pharmaceuticals and chemicals industry, as a prime example. Failure to detect and take action against any IP infringements will undermine the value of your Intellectual Property rights and cause problematic precedents for future infringements.
Steps to keep your intellectual property safe:-
• Identify it – if employees understand what to protect, they can better understand how to protect and who to protect it from.
• Protecting it – we map your company’s assets and determine what information, if lost, would hurt your company the most. We then consider which of those assets are the most accessible and place them accordingly in risk groupings.
• Label it – we put into effect a system to correctly label and declare what belongs to you. This will go a long way in proving your case in court should the need arise.
• Lock it up – we design and implement physical and data asset protection.
• Train you to think like us – being more aware would make you consider protecting client information, shredding paper documents in the rubbish bin containing important information and other practices that can safeguard your competitive edge.