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Intellectual property disputes: diverse and often complex

On Behalf of | Nov 6, 2020 | Business |

Business owners in the Tampa Bay area and other locales across Florida comprise a dynamic and enterprising group. Companies spanning the state are distinctly diverse and active across an exhaustive number of industries.

Those commercial entities of course embrace different opportunities and are highly singular concerning their planning approach and operational models, but they uniformly have one thing in common.

That is, they routinely face challenges. And it is often the case that an issue before them has the clear potential to become a disagreement with a third party that evolves into adversarial litigation.

The avenues of contention allow for many possibilities, as noted by one legal Florida overview spotlighting common business disputes.

That primer cites litigation rows ranging from contract breach and employee grievances to customer/supplier spats, unfair trade practices and more. Company owners can find themselves at either extreme in a commercial fray, being a claimant advancing a grievance or a respondent defending against a claim of wrongdoing.

A heightened potential for some businesses: IP disputes

The acronym “IP” is the shorthand designation for intellectual property, which is a paramount concern for legions of enterprises. An in-depth article on IP challenges in the commercial realm duly notes that, “For many businesses, intellectual property can be amongst the company’s most valuable assets.”

Business principals focus maximum effort on both developing and protecting IP against its alleged infringement and mitigating their own liability when targeted in an infringement claim.

IP disputes commonly coalesce around the four following categories, as noted in the above article:

  • Patents (applicable to “new, useful and non-obvious” inventions; patent claims can be hyper-complex)
  • Trademarks (subject matter relevant to business entities’ company names, slogans and other identifiers)
  • Copyrights (relevant statutory law protects original expressions and works of authorship)
  • Trade secrets (often focused on a company’s proprietary data, like a recipe/process, software program or business plan)

What remedies might feature in IP litigation?

Although every intellectual property case is different, of course, a few core remedies often surface in IP cases. Those centrally include these outcomes:

  • Injunction against further infringement
  • Damages proved by a claimant
  • Return or destruction in matters involving tangible infringing items
  • Continued oversight to ensure compliance

It certainly bears noting that not every IP-linked or other commercial dispute is destined for court and protracted litigation. A proven business law legal team can often help a client explore a dispute-resolution alternative to court that might provide for an optimal solution to business conflict.

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