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Protecting Your Business and Going to Court

I wish I could get every client to memorize this paragraph from Striking Up's Protect Your Intellectual Property:

I don?t condone suing others consistently. Sue to win. If you don?t think you?ll win, better hold off that thought and put your effort and energy on other things instead of thinking about war in the courtroom with others. Stay smart and use the knowledge of Intellectual Property laws."

Unless the destruction of the business looms without litigation, litigation distracts from running the business. I have long advocated everyone who can read to read Sun Tzu's Art of War. The following comes from Mark McNeilly?s The Sun Tzu Strategy Site (having just found this site, I suggest anyone reading this to go there and read it.):

5) Use alliances and strategic control points in the industry to ?shape? your opponents and make them conform to your will.

?Therefore, those skilled in war bring the enemy to the field of battle and are not brought there by him.?
--Sun Tzu

?Shaping you competition? means changing the rules of contest and making the competition conform to your desires and your actions. It means taking control of the situation away from your competitor and putting it in your own hands. One way of doing so is through the skillful use of alliances. By building a strong web of alliances, the moves of your competitors can be limited. Also, by controlling key strategic points in your industry, you will be able to call the tune to which your competitors dance.

I put my belief that preventive law down to having read Sun Tzu. Deal the problems ahead of litigation for litigation is a blunt instrument with risky outcomes. The Art of War considers the best general as the one who ends the war without a fight. Think about that. Then apply it to your business' legal needs.

I will soon be taking on new business clients. If you want to protect your business, give me a call.

Full post as published by Indiana Civil & Business Lawyer on January 20, 2009 (boomark / email).