Protecting your intellectual property: NDA agreements for inventors and entrepreneurs

A non-disclosure agreement (NDA) can act as an effective tool to safeguard your IP and other confidential information when entering into discussions with potential investors or partners. In this blog, we will delve into the world of NDA agreements, exploring why they are essential and how you can leverage them to protect your IP.

Why NDA agreements are crucial for protecting IP

• Securing your trade secrets: As an inventor or entrepreneur, you likely have valuable IP or know-how that gives you an edge in the market against your competitors. NDA agreements allow you to share these trade secrets with potential partners, investors, or collaborators while ensuring they are legally bound to maintain confidentiality. By keeping your trade secrets under wraps, you can maintain your competitive advantage and protect your unique position in the industry.

• Maintaining confidentiality in collaborations: Collaborations with third parties can be instrumental in developing your innovations. However, it's important to be cautious when sharing sensitive information when entering into discussions to assess how fruitful the partnership could be. NDA agreements establish a legal framework that binds all parties to maintain strict confidentiality regarding any disclosed information during these discussions. This ensures that your proprietary knowledge remains protected, even when engaging in collaborations that involve sharing trade secrets or technical know-how.

• Pitching to investors: Presenting your groundbreaking ideas or inventions to potential investors is now extremely common for inventors and entrepreneurs seeking funding. However, without proper protection, when you speak with potential investors you risk exposing your IP to individuals who may not have your best interests at heart.

By incorporating NDA agreements into your pitching process, you can confidently showcase your IP, knowing that the investors are bound by legal obligations to maintain confidentiality. It also demonstrates professionalism which can create a good first impression of an entrepreneur with investors.

How can entrepreneurs and inventors protect their IP with a NDA agreement?

NDA agreements ensures that when you share your game-changing concepts with third parties, they remain confidential. As with any contract, the language used in a NDA agreement is of the utmost importance - it's not always a "one size fits all" situation. Additionally, although its always best to have written agreement, entrepreneurs and investors also need to ensure that they're taking proactive steps to ensure that their IP is protected. For this reason, our legal experts have listed below their top tips to set you on the right path.

To effectively protect your IP with a NDA agreement, it is essential to:

Use the correct type of agreement

If only one party will be disclosing information, then a one-sided NDA agreement will be more suitable. This type of NDA agreement will only require one of the parties to keep the other party’s confidential information a secret. On the other hand, if both parties will be sharing confidential information, a two-way NDA agreement will ensure that both parties keep each other’s information confidential.

For a deeper dive into the differences between these two types of NDA agreements, take a look at this handy guide.

Clearly define confidential information

Ensure that your NDA agreement defines the type of information that will be considered confidential, leaving no room for ambiguity. For example, if you will be discussing a particular app or invention, ensure this is clearly labelled within the definition of confidential information. Be as specific as possible to cover the scope of your IP and the associated proprietary information. For more information about what to include in your NDA agreements, check out this blog.

Mark confidential information

When disclosing confidential information in writing, clearly label it as "confidential". This labelling will remind the recipient of the protected status of the information and ensure they maintain its confidentiality. This will also provide evidence of its confidential nature.

Control access

Implement measures to restrict access to confidential information to prevent unauthorised disclosure. For example, only grant access to individuals who have a legitimate need to know the information for business purposes.

If the party receiving the confidential information will be disclosing it to their employees or contractors, it is good practice to ensure a provision is included in the NDA agreement requiring the party receiving information to ensure that these individuals are bound by confidentiality terms or have entered into NDA agreements with similar terms.

Depending on the nature of the confidential information, some businesses may request that the party receiving the information implements security measures such as password protection, multi-factor authentication, or encryption to safeguard electronic files containing the confidential information.

Educate and train

Ensure that all parties involved in the NDA agreement understand their obligations and the importance of maintaining confidentiality. It is important that each employee, contractor or agent that will be handling confidential information is aware of what information is confidential and how such information should be handled.

A top tip for ensuring everyone in the business understands how to maintain confidentiality of certain IP is to conduct training sessions or provide guidelines to raise awareness about handling sensitive information and the potential consequences of unauthorised disclosure. For more comprehensive guidance into NDA agreements, click here.

Final thoughts

By implementing NDA agreements, you can establish a legal framework that ensures the confidentiality of your IP and other sensitive information during discussions with potential investors or partners. This can give you the freedom to confidently share your ideas, dive into valuable collaborations and propel your business towards success, knowing that your IP remains secure.

How can Docue help you?

Docue has two NDA agreement templates that can be tailored according to your business needs. If you want to safeguard your IP when entering into new ventures or partnerships, check out these templates:

• One-way NDA agreement; and

• Mutual NDA agreement.

Sign up today and see how easy it is to protect your business with lawyer-grade legal documents.