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Many a great home business is based around a unique idea. The owner usually puts a lot of time and effort - often unpaid in the development stages - into fleshing out the concept, sourcing materials or suppliers, perhaps trialling prototypes, testing the market, refining the offer, building a brand and finally, hopefully, making a living out of it. It's little surprise, then, that when someone else comes along and copies their idea, the home business owner seethes!

With a keener awareness in New Zealand of the value of intellectual property, with globalisation so much easier and with technology continuously levelling out the playing field, and with buzzwords like "the knowledge

economy" and "intellectual capital" making headlines in today's media, protecting one's intellectual property (IP) is more crucial than ever before.

But what is intellectual property, and how can you go about protecting yours?

In simple terms, intellectual property is a "creation of the mind". The World Intellectual Property Organisations splits IP into two categories: copyright (including literary and artistic works) and industrial property (inventions and patents, trademarks, industrial designs, geographic indications). For our purposes we'll also include a business, product or service concept which you may want to keep secret or confidential prior to launch to maintain a competitive advantage. We'll look briefly at each of these from the perspective of the Kiwi home business operator.

Copyright

The definition of copyright includes marketing material, proposals, web site copy, speeches, databases and computer programmes - in fact, just about anything you have written down, sketched, or created. In the case of ideas, it does not include the concept you have outlined, but it does protect the words or pictures you have used to do so.

Industrial intellectual property

For the small and home business, this category includes things the owner has invented, concepts he or she has developed, and some aspects of the brand equity that has been built up or may be built up in their business.

Confidential material

You may have a proposal, business idea, product, service, system or some other such concept which would be advantageous to you if your competitors or potential competitors did not know about until it reached a certain stage of development. It may not be covered by the above two categories, but while you may need to discuss aspects of it with various parties during the development process, you want to ensure the information you share remains confidential.

Taking steps to protect your IP

In general, copyright subsists in any original "work" the moment it is created in material form. You do not need to register it, or even mark it with a © symbol for the copyright to take effect. International agreements mean there is general acceptance of standard copyright regulations throughout much of the world.

Your small or home business can take simple steps to deter others from using your copyright material, for instance, by placing a © symbol, the year and their business name on every original document you create, including on your web site. Digital signatures and other embedded "identifiers" can help protect - and trace - digitally generated work.