Legal Writing

What IP Attorneys Don’t Need

Let’s say you’re the managing partner of your firm’s IP practice group.

Here’s what you don’t need, especially if your firm claims to be technologically savvy:

1. Some unscrupulous marketeer pilfers some articles from your firm’s Web site.
2. He adds a bunch of SEO terms to them.
3. After that, he resells the articles to other law firms (as original works).
4. You don’t even notice what’s happening.

How can you make sure you’re protecting your firm’s IP rights*?

By searching for your content and seeing where it appears.

Note: If your firm really is technologically savvy, then your IT department has a formal and regular procedure for this.

Here?s how:

1. Copy a line from an article posted at your firm’s Web site.
2. Put it in quotes.
3. Ask a search engine to find it.

If all the search engine finds is the article at your firm’s Web site, good (though it’s not a guarantee that some unscrupulous marketeers aren’t pilfering your content).

If it finds the same exact content at other sites, see if your firm’s being quoted for some reason.

If it happens that another firm is republishing your content (and most especially if it’s added a copyright notice to it) without permission, you need to act.

That is . . . you need to act if you want others to believe that yours really is a responsible, competent, and technologically savvy law firm.

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* If you claim you can do this for others, and it’s a service of value you offer, then you’d best do this for your firm, right? Don’t actions speak much louder than marketing claims?

Full post as published by Set in Style on November 03, 2009 (boomark / email).