The ONE Thing Business Attorneys Almost Always Overlook When Advising Clients
You could be letting your clients down and not even know it. Clients trust you, as a business attorney, to advise them on protecting their businesses to ensure long-term success. Intellectual property protection is a significant factor in business creation and development. It is also one of the most often forgotten tasks.
In a world where eCommerce is the status quo, trademark registration protects your clients and their businesses from nefarious competitors
Complete Strategic Planning for Clients
As a business attorney, you take care to advise and guide your clients toward the best avenue for success. You help them develop and review their strategic plans. You identify potential opportunities that your clients may have missed.
You act as legal counsel and strategic advisor to anticipate and mitigate business and legal risks. These risks include proper formation, insurance coverage, and appropriate contract language.
Those are all part of a solid plan, but such a plan is still missing protection for intellectual property. An intellectual property plan may include patents, trade secrets, and trademarks. Every business operating today can benefit from at least one of these protections.
Problems with Not Getting a Trademark
More and more businesses today understand the value of intellectual property. This has resulted in two trends. The first is a rise in unsavory businesses stealing another company’s branding to profit from the already-established consumer goodwill and reputation.
The second is the rise in new business owners filing trademark applications. World trademark registration has increased for the last eight years. In 2017, trademark registration totaled 12.39 million.
When analyzing these two trends together, you’ll quickly realize that businesses that fail to file for trademark protection become exponentially more vulnerable because unsavory businesses see them as an easier target. This puts your client at considerable risk for knockoffs stealing their sales volume and ruining their brand reputation.
Once your client faces IP theft, the litigation costs can cripple a growing company. At this point, it becomes much more difficult, and sometimes impossible, to go back and get protection.
Another important consideration is the growth of your client’s business. If your client plans to sell products on Amazon, trademark registration is a must. There are over 350 million products on Amazon,1 and 9 out of 10 consumers2 price-check a product on Amazon before making a purchasing decision.
For businesses, being where the consumers are is vital. To join the Fulfillment by Amazon program, trademark registration is required. This is due to Amazon’s commitment to reduce the number of counterfeits and knockoff products listed.
Referring Clients to a Trademark Specialist
Knowing the intricacies of intellectual property law may not be in your wheelhouse. That doesn’t need to prevent you from including this essential element in your suite of client services. By working with an experienced law firm, you and your client can be rewarded.
The Rapacke Law Group is an intellectual property law firm that specializes in helping its clients protect their businesses. We regularly work by referral with attorneys who focus on the fields of commercial litigation, transactions, and business.
If you would like to remain involved in the process, we are more than willing to serve as co-counsel. This allows you to remain engaged in the process with your client.
We adhere to the Florida Bar rules 4-1.5(f)(4)(D) or 4-1.5(g) pertaining to the sharing of legal fees when referring a law firm or attorney or serving as co-counsel.
Benefits of a Referral Relationship
You can have complete confidence when you develop a referral relationship with Rapacke Law Group. We respect your client relationship and will promptly provide a case analysis and communicate directly with you.
Our experienced and knowledgeable attorneys will impress your clients with their professionalism and ability to assist at any stage of the intellectual property process. This means that from registration to litigation, your clients are protected.
Complete the form below to speak with our managing partner Andrew Rapacke. Let’s develop a mutually beneficial relationship to give your clients complete service and protection.
