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[Music] welcome to the Canadian Intellectual Property Office as educational video series called intellectual property strategy the problem solvers guide to staying out of trouble in these videos you will learn what an intellectual property strategy is and the steps you can take to develop one for your business step 5 implement you've analyzed the IEP and also have a plan on how to fill your IP gaps you've come a long way let's make sure you have some supporting frameworks and policies in place to implement your IP strategy in this section we discussed the importance of training your employees on the basics of IP making sure people around you know what they can and can't say or do with their IP and lastly the importance of having agreements in place now let's go over some contracts that you need to be familiar with you should know what they are and how you can use them an assignment agreement is a contract that transfers intellectual property rights from the creator to another entity such as a company if you're hiring contractors to developer create software movies domain names research or do work in other technical areas make sure you help them sign the agreements to assign the IP rights to the company simply put this contract is there to ensure that the company owns the IP not the employees non-disclosure agreements also known as confidentiality agreements are legally binding contracts that allow parties to divulge confidential information with one another under a binding agreement that neither party shall disclose or otherwise misuse the confidential information and these are used in almost all aspects of business transactions but are particularly important when dealing with intellectual property especially if it isn't yet formally protected such as trade secrets what are you still improving your invention it is often impractical to acquire formal IP protection so confidentiality agreements may be the only effective way to protect the IP at this time remember that NDA's must be signed before disclosing confidential information a company is only as good as its employees and that's also true for IP so make sure your employees know how to handle IP to make sure that it's protected and forest and developed the way you intended our IP Academy is intended as a free tool to train staff on IP fundamentals also remind your employees about the IP ownership clauses in their ployment agreements if you don't have any IP clauses clarifying IP ownership you need to know the general rules if your employees create copyrightable works for you during their employment the employer by default will own these copyrights on the other hand if the employee creates an invention at work unless he or she was specifically hired to create that invention it is presumed that the employee will own the patent rights and there are different rules if you deal with independent contractors make sure you and your employees identify and understand these rights and don't forget about trade secrets employees are the ones most likely to disclose a company's valuable trade secrets this can happen either inverted Lee or purposely make sure you also educate your employees on protecting your trade secrets let your employees know what information is considered as confidential and can only be disclosed under non-disclosure agreements teach them about these agreements and how to use them you can also restrict access to trade secrets to only the employees that need it so only one person is the lead of the confidential information this person can then provide assistance to other employees and verify that outgoing information in meetings and emails are free from confidential information business policies can also affect IP management for example make sure that your contracts with vendors and distributors protect the brand and goodwill associated with a trademark it should be clear how they can display your brand and what is an acceptable quality and scope of the goods or services sold in association with the brand communicate the IP strategy to staff and senior management make sure they have an understanding of which information or materials may be disclosed or community both internally and externally like publishing materials or information that can be accessed externally online or even internally to your business Private Network the impact and risk associated with disclosing improper materials should be clear for all levels of your business your advisors and board members where applicable should also understand your IP strategy what you have prioritized and why your IP strategy should be an essential and integrated component of your business it's not a standalone plan nor should it be the sole responsibility of the legal or research and development team to manage alone as you've seen an IP strategy is a multi-faceted plan requiring business technology marketing and legal expertise these considerations and many more are available on our website where you can build your own IP strategy guide based on where your business is at and what you're trying to do to create a guide tailored to your specific needs open a new browser tab and go to Canada CA / IP for business in the IP Academy section you will find the IP strategy assessment tool [Music]