Businesses Face Growing Need for Cybersecurity to Protect Intellectual Property

The need to protect Intellectual Property (IP), whether copyrighted music or a secret ingredient, has always been important for creators. In the context of our rapidly growing, global way of life, the threat to intellectual property also grows and becomes more complex due to innovative technology and the need for cybersecurity.

Intellectual Property Protection Must Adapt

When new developments arise in technology or in world events, intellectual property protection needs to grow and change, too.

In 2020, Thomas Donohue, CEO of the US Chamber of Commerce, released a statement on the importance of protecting intellectual property in the age of COVID-19 as new drug patents were filed. He explained the importance of patents, from increasing investments in biopharmaceutical research to fostering cooperation between the government and the private sector. His call for awareness demonstrated the importance of IP protections in businesses and everyday life—all the way down to the medicine we take.

In 2022, the US Chamber of Commerce published recommendations for modernizing intellectual property in the face of the challenges presented by artificial intelligence (AI). Intellectual property and cybersecurity affect our lives and influence the world around us.  They color our decisions, from business and financial decisions to the use of technology in our personal lives.

What’s in the Box?

‘What’s in the Box?’ is a term that relates to the principles of protecting great ideas. Intellectual property protection is a box that allows you to protect all the great ideas inside.

You can’t protect any ideas that fall outside of the box; there’s no use closing the barn door after the horse is stolen.

That’s why intellectual property exists: To create the biggest box possible.

Cybersecurity acts as the lock on the box. In an age of technology, cybersecurity is increasingly critical to keep your ideas and information safe from those with nefarious purposes.

Types of Intellectual Property

Intellectual property may seem like a difficult concept because it’s not a singular concept. Instead, it is an umbrella term encompassing various principles, laws, and ideas. Therefore, how you protect intellectual property will be influenced by the type of property itself.

When you remove the veil of ‘intellectual property,’ you’re left with four different groups of ideas:

• Patents
• Copyright
• Trademarks
• Trade secrets

Patents

Most people are probably familiar with patents, given how fond large companies (such as Apple and Samsung) are of suing each other over patents.

Inventors receive patents to protect their inventions. In the US, patents are obtained from the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Obtaining a patent from the government grants the owner the exclusive right to exclude other people from making, using, or selling their invention for a set length of time.

Patent owners do not necessarily have to use their patent to enforce it. Stopping others from using your hard work (or brilliant idea) is the reward for obtaining the patent.

Copyrights

Copyrights protect works of art, be it a book, painting, song, or movie.

Like with patents, the government issues copyrights for a set time. Once a copyright expires, the world is free to use the work. This is why you can get all of Shakespeare’s plays for free with a quick Google search.

Copyrights are also like patents in that the owner doesn’t have to use their work to enforce it because the owner did the critical work by creating.

Trademarks

Trademarks are words or symbols used to represent a company or its products.

The United States government grants trademark registration, but registration isn’t necessary to ensure protection. Trademarks, unlike patents or copyrights, can last forever as long as the company continuously uses the trademark in association with the goods and services.

To give you an idea of how long trademarks may last, one of the oldest trademarks in the world is the name of the famous beer Stella Artois. The company claims continuous use since 1366.

While trademark owners want their marks to be well-known, this isn’t necessarily always a good thing. When trademarks become so well-associated with their goods (think Kleenex for tissues), they risk becoming generic and less worthy of protection. If everyone thinks of Kleenex for any box of tissues, the company Kleenex can’t argue their name is only associated with their tissues.

Trade Secrets

Trade secrets are like trademarks in that they can last forever, so long as the owner takes steps to make sure their secrets stay secrets. Most people think of the recipe for Coca-Cola as a trade secret, but trade secrets are far more common than people think. Even customer lists, for example, can be a trade secret. A manufacturing process can be a trade secret.

Unlike patents, copyrights, and trademarks, no one must register their trade secret. They just need to make sure it stays secret. And, if they can do that, it can remain protected forever. (So, good luck figuring out what goes into KFC chicken!)

The Critical Need For Cybersecurity

The internet is jam-packed with requests for personal information, credit card information, cookies that track our purchases, and, sometimes, hackers who are desperate for your great ideas. Cybersecurity is the practice of protecting our personal information and our ideas on the internet.

There are many recent stories about data breaches, where some hackers crack open stores of sensitive information online and abscond with customers’ credit card information, personal data, or damaging correspondences for later use.

Cybersecurity and Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is creating new issues for businesses, individuals, and governments to think about and protect themselves from. The advent of ‘intelligent technologies’ makes it even more vital to think about cybersecurity and how to protect intellectual property.

In August 2023, a federal judge ruled that AI-generated art cannot be copyrighted, and the US Copyright Office has launched an initiative to examine copyright policies, laws, and issues raised by the technology.

But to function, AI must be trained using existing material. A 2023 article in Scientific American expressed the need for “smarter” laws to protect intellectual property. New questions have arisen regarding how to protect the “data” – works created by humans – used to train AI.

Cybersecurity and Consumer Privacy

In short, cybersecurity aims to ensure that hacks and data breaches don’t happen—or happen less often.

Federal law requires companies to provide customers with information about how the company stores customer data. Customers are also entitled to know how to keep their information private if they’d rather not disclose it.

Some of these disclosures are usually what the average Internet user clicks through or ‘accepts’ without reading, because who wants to read fifteen pages of terms and conditions in fine print when you’re just trying to sign up for Amazon Prime?

However, those terms and conditions, as well as privacy policies, are fundamental to understanding:

• What the website will know about you
• With whom will the website share that information
• How they will save and, more importantly, protect your information

Privacy, particularly on the internet, is such an essential concept in Europe that it is listed as a fundamental human right under the European Union. The same cannot be said for the United States, which uses a hodgepodge of federal and state laws to govern internet privacy and the storage and sharing of personal information.

Protecting Ideas and Privacy Is Challenging

With the advancement of technology, the capitalization of consumer data, and the mainstream use of artificial intelligence, it is getting increasingly more challenging to protect the privacy and intellectual property of an individual or business.

Know what protections are available, learn how to protect your personal data, and remember: the fewer ideas and personal information you let out onto the internet, the more secure that data will be.

We think you’ll also like:

1. When Collecting Personal Data, Restraint, and Insurance Are Key 
2. Maximizing the Value of a Company’s Intangible Assets 
3. Understanding America’s Federal Legal Language

[Editors’ Note: To learn more about this and related topics, you may want to attend the following on-demand webinars (which you can view at your leisure, and each includes a comprehensive customer PowerPoint about the topic):

1. Copyrights, Patents, and Trademarks…Oh My! 
2. IP – What Every Lawyer & Every Client Must Understand
3. Leveraging & Protecting Trade Secrets in the 21st Century.

This is an updated version of an article originally published on February 23, 2017, and revised on June 30, 2020. This article was most recently updated by the FP Editors.]

©2025. DailyDAC^TM, LLC d/b/a/ Financial Poise^TM. This article is subject to the disclaimers found here.