Monday, April 26 is World Intellectual Property Day, a day to celebrate and learn about the role that intellectual property rights play to encourage and facilitate innovation and creativity.  Originally created by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in 2000, World IP Day is celebrated on April 26 to mark the anniversary of the WIPO Convention becoming law in 1970.

The theme for this year’s World IP Day is IP & SMEs: Taking your ideas to market, celebrating the many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across the world.  There are over 30 million SMEs in the United States alone, and each of these businesses starts with an idea.  Intellectual property is a useful tool that SMEs can use to spur business development and to provide protection to the ideas and innovations that they have worked so hard to develop.  Patents, trademarks, and copyrights may serve as an important source of value for SMEs; however, many SME owners may be unaware that IP protection is available to them or lack the time and resources to address these issues.  The celebration of World Intellectual Property Day seeks to bring attention to the importance of intellectual property and provides an opportunity to raise awareness to how the different tools of the IP system may be used to the advantages of SMEs and all business owners.  For more information from the World Intellectual Property Organization, click here.

If you are interested in learning more about how intellectual property can protect your innovations, please contact one of our attorneys.