Intellectual property is one of the most important assets a business can have. It can form a significant part of their identity, which is crucial for their business. How else could they stand out otherwise?
Intellectual property can mean a lot of things to a business. For instance, confidential information, databases, financial information and trade secrets. It can make all the difference in remaining competitive in a given industry.
Hence why it is of vast importance for a company to protect their IP (intellectual property). This is where intellectual property theft can be dangerous and where private investigators and attorneys come into play.
Intellectual property and digital forensics
Has a rivalling company imitated your patented design too intently? In cases such as these, that can be very dangerous to a company’s livelihood they can hire PIs to perform intellectual property theft investigations.
Oftentimes, former employees, or even current ones, steal sensitive company data. Private investigators can assist in getting to the bottom of the issue, and protect your company’s IP.
So how does this service function? How does a PI go about an intellectual property theft investigation?
- Private investigators can use data extraction with all user-created data. This of course includes deleted data, that may have been an attempt to cover up digital tracks.
- They can also recover deleted emails containing sensitive information or essential clues.
- PIs can also perform scans and thorough searches of an important device with sensitive company information.
- Performing keyword searches with important data and software can also shed light on the nature of the case.
- Private investigators can even trace whether an interested party copied specific data. For example, other data storage services, including web-based storage. These skills are not limited to online copying of data, however, PIs can also determine whether data was copied onto physical devices. For instance, a USB drive of some kind.
- Analysis of reports, issues and workflow data is also crucial to the investigation process.
All this information put together can be the turning point in court, to secure the protection of a company’s IP.
How might someone steal IP?
IP theft occurs when an entity or individual uses someone’s intellectual property without the owner’s permission. This can include trademarks and copyrights, as well as, patents. Of course, different types of intellectual property have different forms of protection.
For instance, copyrights have laws that protect authored or published works, such as books and media. Whereas, trademarks protect important and identifying phrases, phrases or words that distinguish a product or company. Patents, on the other hand, protect inventions and innovations.
Any entity’s use of these without the owner’s permission is considered IP theft. If after a thorough IP theft investigation PIs find enough evidence, you might have a strong case on your hands.
In such a case with proper IP protections, the company could sue for damages. Since IP theft can be detrimental to a given company’s survival and long-term growth.
If you find yourself in need of a licensed private investigator and their particular set of skills, please feel free to call us. Or simply click on this link to get in contact with one of our team members.
