6 Steps to Protect Your Intellectual Property as a Designer

Posted on August 1, 2024 | Updated on August 9, 2024

The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) shouldn’t concern designers too much. Creativity is something computers are unlikely to learn. Machines can spit out a lot of trained information and recreate things already made, but when it comes to unique ideas, humans excel at creating new concepts. Protect intellectual property such as unique artwork, written content and other designs to keep unsavory players from stealing your ideas. 

Why Should You Protect Your Work?

There are many reasons to protect your artwork. You poured blood, sweat and tears into creating something amazing for your client or your portfolio. You should be the one to profit from those efforts. When you maintain IP rights, you can license a concept and make residual income.

Taking out patents, copyrights and trademarks protects intellectual property and allows artists to take legal action if someone steals their work. IP can apply across industries such as design, technology, app design and publishing. 

Steps to Take to Protect Intellectual Property

In most countries, as soon as you create something, it is considered copyrighted. However, when it comes to business symbols, color combinations and taglines, your rights are a bit hazy. 

Filing the appropriate paperwork with your government agency can ensure you take the right steps to protect your intellectual property and can seek financial remedies if someone uses your work or ideas without your permission. It can also protect your brand image. Keep your IP safe by following these steps:

1. Research Your Design

So much of art comes from things people have seen and experienced. It is easy to subconsciously reuse a concept without meaning to. Before creating a design or choosing a color palette, research if it’s in use elsewhere, particularly in the same industry.

One example might be a new sugar-free cola beverage. The designer thinks a silver can might be striking and adds red because it’s thought to make people hungry or signal passion. Unfortunately, the look and design is very similar to Coca-Cola’s for their Diet Coke line. 

Not only is the idea one that conflicts with another player in the industry, but the company may well get sued as Coca-Cola is established and has trademarks and copyrights on their concepts.

Take the time to make sure your idea is truly unique. Whether it is a business name, color palette for the brand or a logo, you want something that stands out and is relevant for the company. 

2. Keep Records of Your Work

Maintain a record of your work on whatever you wish to protect. From the moment you come up with the initial concept sketch and through all the edits and input, you’ll want a record of each step of the process.

Why do you need to keep a record of your design from beginning to end? Imagine you have a team of designers working for a client. Everyone adds input and you are almost to the end of the design process when one of your staff jumps ship and takes the design idea to a competitor. 

Perhaps you realize later after the client’s site goes live. You now have to defend your right to use your own design. Thankfully, you recorded everything and kept it, so you have proof the idea came from your agency and your client approved it first. 

3. File Paperwork

Protect designs by filing an application through your national or regional intellectual property office. While the United States Patent and Trademark Office or the Library of Congress for copyrights works for those residing in the U.S., where you file can vary by country. 

IP paperwork can be quite complex. You may want to hire an attorney specializing in IP law to ensure everything gets filled in correctly and approved in a timely manner. Things such as trademarks must be renewed every so often, as well, so keep an eye on deadlines and notices from the entity you filed the application through. 

4. Keep Secrets Quiet

One way to protect your designs is being cautious about who you share information with. Anyone working on your staff should sign a non-disclosure agreement so clients’ designs are kept confidential. 

If you come up with a product design or something unique, limit who knows the details to ensure the idea isn’t stolen or counterfeited before your company can profit from the idea. 

Train employees not to discuss ideas on social media or in online forums. Some brands make the mistake of starting a Kickstarter without having the appropriate protections in place to keep people from stealing their ideas. A patent on an invention is one way to protect your IP. 

5. Budget for the Costs

The fees associated with filing for protections can add up. If you hire a lawyer, costs increase. According to the American Intellectual Property Law Association’s (AIPLA) Report of the Economic Survey for 2023, the average billing rate for patents is $447 per hour. 

For smaller brands, the prohibitive cost of securing a patent for a product design may leave them open to potential intellectual property theft. Finding funding through investors and fundraising is preferable to leaving your idea open to thieves, though. 

6. Defend Your Rights

Once you’ve secured your intellectual property documentation, it’s up to your brand to monitor for abuse and take action. One example might be a company trademarking a unique name made up of the initials of their founders’ first names. The company leadership files a trademark for the name, so only they can use it.

The name soon became well-known in the industry. Unfortunately, an unscrupulous competitor thinks they’ll use the same name and add the word “best” to the beginning of the name. The company should send a cease and desist letter to the smaller brand via their attorney.

Other ways to protect IP rights include filing complaints with the proper entities showing how you own the trademark and taking legal action, such as lawsuits. Disney is a company known for not tolerating anyone using their name or trademarked properties without the proper permissions and licensing.  

If you fail to defend your intellectual property, you could set a precedent where you allow others to use your designs without your permission. It can make a legal case a bit more complicated to win. 

Protect Your Ideas

Taking the steps to protect intellectual property safeguards your hard work and keeps you competitive in your industry. Stay updated on the latest IP laws, keep paperwork filed and work to protect your designs. No one else should benefit from your mind’s labor. A few simple steps will ensure no one uses your designs without your permission. 

About The Author

Coraline (Cora) Steiner is the Senior Editor of Designerly Magazine, as well as a freelance developer. Coraline particularly enjoys discussing the tech side of design, including IoT and web hosting topics. In her free time, Coraline enjoys creating digital art and is an amateur photographer.

Leave a Comment