Strong Carbon Fiber Case Study

Many small and medium-sized enterprises don’t know how to appreciate the value of intellectual property (IP) and use it to their own benefit. An enterprise continuously use and innovates a product or service it provides while IP may assist an enterprise in almost all aspect of its business development and marketing strategy. In order for a business entity to fully take advantage of the IP system and get the best possible commercial results from its products and services, they should consider protecting, managing and enforcing their IP. If an enterprise IP is legally protected and there is a demand for these IP-protected products or services in the market then IP can become a valuable business asset.

In the case of Strong Carbon Fiber, it would
There are several factors to be considered before doing so such as whether the new technology has a potential market and has advantage over similar technology or existing products. Are there potential investors or licensees who will be willing to commercialize the invention? Is the product derived from this technology can be easily reverse engineer? Is there any possibility that a competitor may likely invent and patent what you invented? Will the projected revenue justify the cost of patenting the new technology? Can the enterprise easily identify violation of the patent rights and are you ready to invest time and financial resources for enforcing your patents? Lastly, is it patentable, is it commercially useful and does it have an inventive
If Strong Carbon Fiber don’t want to go to the process of registration and compliance with the disclosure of the information to an IP Office, it is advantageous to protect the invention through trade secret. Also, trade secrets have immediate effect and are not limited in time compared to patent where protection is only limited for a period of twenty years from the filing of the application. In trade secret, it may continue indefinitely as long as the secret is kept confidential and not revealed to the public. However, once the secret is made public, anyone will have access to their new carbon manufacturing process and if someone will be able to reverse engineer it, then they are free to use the technology. Eventually, if others were able to develop the process by legitimate means, they can apply a patent for the new carbon manufacturing process invented by Strong Carbon Fiber. Trade secrets are considered to be weak compared with the protection granted by a patent and varies from one country to another making it more difficult to be