Intellectual Property and Copyright Infringement

Intellectual property theft includes alleged theft of valuable trade secrets, or registered ideas. In many circumstances the calculations of losses is intangible; however, VIS can help you identify, define, and calculate your losses and begin an in-depth investigation to resolve the crime We will work with you closely to minimize additional loss and move forward to seek resolution of the alleged theft.

Intellectual Property theft occurs when someone misappropriates or uses without permission the intellectual property of another individual or company, including patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets, for a commercial purpose.

It is very common for competitors to attempt to misappropriate and use to their benefit the hard work that you have put into growing your brand. If you have a widely recognized logo, product, name, service, device, recipe, or a number of other things that can easily be identified as yours, then your competition is likely to want to infringe on that success by creating something very similar that customers may confuse as your product. This can damage your reputation if the product is inferior, and it can decrease your sales. No matter the cause, the reason, or the effect, however, you should be protected. At VIS, our copyright and intellectual property investigators offer free consultations to determine if you have a case. We will identify the source of the theft, and we will gather the necessary evidence to stop the unpermitted use of your intellectual property.

Unregistered Trade Secrets, Confidential Proposals and Work Papers, Technical Notes

• A trade secret is any business or technical information, including formulas, patterns, programs, devices, compilations of information, methods, recipes, or techniques that have commercial value because the information is not publicly known
• An infringer may be liable for civil damages on top of an injunction, including reasonable royalties, damages, and attorneys' fees.

Copyrighted Materials and Registered Works

• Registering your copyright grants the author exclusive rights over their literary works, graphs, pictures, sculptures, architectural works, computer programs, sound recordings, dramatic works, videos, films, and other creative works
• Must be in some tangible form of expression such as a writing, recording, or picture
• The "idea" expressed in a copyrighted work is not protected, but the presentation of that idea may be
• Copyrights may protect against reproduction, distribution, public display, public performance, and derivative works based on the original
• If you are hired to create something by another person, the finished product is a "Work for Hire" product and the ownership rights belong to the person who hired you
• Duration of Protection
  • Copyrights protection lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years
  • Work for Hire and Anonymous copyrights last 95 years from first publication, or 120 years from creation, whichever comes first
• An infringer may be liable for civil damages on top of an injunction, including reasonable royalties, damages, and attorneys' fees.

Patented Items

• A patent prevents others from making, using, selling, or offering to sell an invention within the US for a certain period of time (generally 20 years)
• No patent exists until the US Patent Office officially issues it (different from copyrights and trademarks, which exist automatically—but with limited protection—upon creation of the work)
• An infringer may be liable for civil damages on top of an injunction, including reasonable royalties, damages, and attorneys' fees.

Trademark Violations, Trade Names or Partials

• A trademark may be any word, group of words, logo, symbol, numbers, colors, sounds, scents, or shape of packaging that is used to identify and distinguish a producer's goods or services
• A registered trademark may not be reproduced or counterfeited in connection with any sale, offer to sell, distribution, or advertising
• Anyone who infringes on a trademark may face a court injunction, be forced to turn over any profits from the infringement, pay damages, pay attorney fees, and treble damages
• Unregistered trademarks may be indicated with a "TM" for "trademark" or an "SM" for "service mark"
• Trademark owner may lose his right to damages if the trademark lacks notice of a registration (such as ®)

Strategic Business Planning

Gray Market Distributions, Illegal Distributions

Counterfeiting, Unauthorized Product Diversions

VIS protects your intellectual property rights, if an individual or an organization is stealing any intellectual properties and using it as their own or misusing it for commercial purpose. This investigation covers all the types of Intellectual Properties. We are providing these services in various cities of India like Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Delhi, Ahmednagar, Hyderabad, Noida, Pune, Jaipur and Bangalore.