When Should You Contact An Intellectual Property Lawyer

While most people know what it is that an intellectual property lawyer does, they are unsure about what they should be contacting one to help them out with legal issues. This leads to a lot of people calling up a lawyer and telling them that someone else has stolen their idea. When the lawyer asks whether they had the idea copyrighted, trademarked, patented or any other legal protection, this leaves the person stunned. -No,- they stutter, -I didn't know I had to. But I had the idea first!- The lawyer will then inform them that, unfortunately, there is nothing they can do.

So, when should you contact an intellectual property lawyer? There are actually a number of times that you should be pulling out the old contact list and giving your lawyer a call, including:

When you first come up with a song/logo/business name/etc that you want protected


Don't wait until you have told all your friends about your great new song - the moment you have some sort of intellectual property that you don't want anyone else to use, contact a lawyer and get them to file the relevant protections for you. In that month between you coming up with the logo and you contacting a lawyer, someone else could have stolen your idea and copyrighted it for themselves!

When you need to renew or reapply for protection


Some intellectual property protections only last for a certain number of years, at which point you need to reapply for the copyright or the patent or whatever it is that you had. Failing to do this will put your idea out into the public sphere, where anyone can use it without permission. Make sure that you find out when your protections need to be renewed and contact your lawyer will in advance of these dates to discuss your options.

When someone has used your work without asking or paying for permission first


If you come across a similar product, brand or logo to yours and you believe that the creator has blatantly stolen your work, you need to contact your lawyer straight away and alert them to the possible infringement. They will then decide whether such an infringement has occurred and will take the necessary steps to rectify the issue.


As you can see, there are a number of situations that would warrant you to contact your somekeyword. As a general rule, it is always better to contact them sooner rather than later, or you may find yourself like the person spoken about in the first paragraph - having had your idea stolen and not being able to do anything about it.