How to Carry Out an Intellectual Property Investigation
Before proceeding to explore the best way to go about carrying out an intellectual property investigation, it may be a good idea to mention something with regard to when such an investigation would be justified. Now the need for you to carry out an intellectual property investigation would arise where you feel that someone could have breached your intellectual property rights. It could be, for instance, where you have filed a patent for a particular product and where, rather 'coincidentally,' you come across someone selling a suspiciously similar product.
It could also be where you, as a creative worker (say a writer, a film maker, a singer or anything along those lines) come across bootleg copies of your work, and where you are keen on knowing who is infringing on your intellectual-property rights. Or it could be where you feel that you are not getting enough money out of your intellectual-property and where you come to develop a suspicion that the other people with whom you co-own the intellectual property are short-changing you.
In all these situations, the intellectual-property investigation would have a number of objectives. Firstly, it would be aimed at identifying the source of the intellectual property infringement. This would be important because as it often turns out in these kinds of situations, the source of property rights infringement you most strongly suspect can be the most innocent person, whilst the person you least suspect turns out to be the real culprit. So the first objective would be to identify the actual source of the infringement. The second objective of the intellectual property investigation would be to establish the motives of the infringement.
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