ConvertiP

Is it time to change tack?

Businesses can reap enormous benefits from converting trade secrets to patents following commercial success.

Protecting innovation is a long-term game; it can literally take decades of work to make sure you have exactly the right strategy and exactly the right formulation of IP rights in place. However, protection is also a fluid process, and one of the exciting parts of our work is learning about our clients’ commercial successes and ensuring they make the right adjustments to their IP strategy to provide a solid foundation for continued success.

One of these adjustments is to convert trade secrets into patents.

As a business grows, it often accumulates confidential know-how under trade secret protection. But once a product relying on these secrets achieves commercial success, it’s time to reassess your IP strategy because once a product is in the public domain, it will almost certainly need more formal protection. A patent is often the best option.

A patent offers well-defined, enforceable protection. It can also deliver significant financial benefits.

For a lucrative product, the patent holder may access substantial tax reliefs. Since the product has a proven revenue stream, Patent Box tax relief can often outweigh the costs of obtaining and maintaining a patent.

We appreciate that making the right next decision requires a great deal of consideration. We have designed ConvertiP to make the process as easy as possible.

ConvertiP: MAKING THE DECISION TO CONVERT TRADE SECRETS TO PATENTS STRAIGHTFORWARD

ConvertiP is a straightforward audit that enables us to perform a quick cost-benefit analysis of whether a commercially successful invention should be kept as a trade secret or is a candidate for conversion to a patent.

The structure of the audit also allows us to reappraise any innovation that has been previously identified for such products to provide you with a living document that can develop with your product roadmap.

During the process, we will balance the subjects of your trade secrets against the strategic reasons for converting trade secrets to patents. These include:

  • The revenue tied to a product stream has increased to the extent that the risk of potentially losing exclusivity from a breach of confidence is too great.
  • Patent Box tax relief for a product stream could reduce the level of Corporation Tax you need to pay on profits earned from your patented inventions by 10%.
  • Obtaining a patent might add weight to an earlier R&D tax credits claim that has been queried following a change in practice at HMRC.
  • The business plans to change how a trade secret is deployed (for example, when scaling up from manufacturing in-house to overseas).
  • The business is considering seeking external funding, and discussion with potential investors or lenders has highlighted a perceived lack of hard IP.
  • The viability of keeping an invention confidential might change due to changes within the business’s processes or the scale of its activities.
  • The business finds out that the trade secret has, in fact, recently been disclosed in breach of confidence (the classic disgruntled former employee scenario) - it might still be possible to obtain patent protection within a brief window.

If you would like to find out more about ConvertiP, you can view our brochure here.

Or, if you’d prefer to arrange an initial call with one of our conversion specialists or book your audit, please contact us today.