When planning to expand to international market, have to think of IP

A stable grow company will not remain at the same place, earning the same amount of money. Thus, expansion will be their further move. If the expansion being done within Malaysia, and you had previously go through the previous three stages especially the protection stage, then the IP risk can be minimized automatically.

However, if your want to expand your business to other countries, then the IP issue of that country should be take note before you decide to enter that market. This is because to the developed countries, the IP issue will be one of the criteria to be considered before having their investment. Thus, this tells us that the IP issue is as important as the financial issue.

The most common example will be the name of your company or your products’ brand name. If your company is having the identical brand name with one of the company in the country which you want to move in, then you are not allow to enter that market if they had registered the brand name as their IP. For example: if your product’s registered brand name is ‘PENIX’ and you are in the clothing industry selling the clothes for pregnant women, but when you want to expand your business to America, they not allow you to registered, the reason the person give you is in America, there already have company selling clothing for pregnant women using the name of ‘PHOENIX’. Besides that, the company with the brand name of ‘PHOENIX’ had already registered its brand name as their IP, if you enter the market, then you will infringe the IP law and regulations.

From the above matter, the first thing we are able to see is: although the company of ‘PENIX’ already has its registered brand name in Malaysia, it is not enough for them to enter the international market. Second, if you do not take into consideration for the potential IP issue during your planning process, then you will incur a substantial loss. Third, if you do not know the law and regulations of the country you wish to invest in, then you will having a possibility of infringing the law. Actually, the above problem can be solved easily if you have the basic knowledge on IP.

If you have the knowledge on IP, then you will go and register your brand name in the international market as your IP; if you have the knowledge of IP, then you will take into consideration the IP issue in your planning process, in order to eliminate and minimize the possibility of infringing the IP law and regulations.