Intellectual Property Audits for Businesses

Your brand name, logo, website, creative content, and the rights you license to (or from) others are among your most valuable business assets. Yet many businesses cannot say with confidence what they own, whether it is properly protected, or whether they have permission for everything they use. Our intellectual property audit gives you a clear picture of where you stand and a practical plan to protect your brand going forward.

What Is an IP Audit?

An IP audit is a structured review of the intellectual property your business owns, uses, licenses, and depends on. We identify your valuable intellectual property assets, confirm who owns them, verify that they are properly registered and maintained, and uncover gaps before they turn into legal disputes, lost rights, or problems in a sale or investment.

When to schedule an IP audit:

• Launching a new business, product, or brand
• Raising capital or preparing for a merger, acquisition, or sale
• Expanding into new markets or countries
• After a rebrand or a period of rapid growth
• Every one to two years as routine maintenance

Protect your brand with an intellectual property audit. Call M. Ross & Associates, LLC at (201) 897-4942.

What Our IP Audit Covers

Copyright Ownership, Registration, and Maintenance

Copyright protects product designs, website content, photographs, videos, graphics, software, packaging, marketing materials, and other creative content. Because copyright exists automatically once an original work is sufficiently fixed, many owners assume nothing more is needed after the work is created. We review:

• Ownership. Work created by freelancers, designers, photographers, independent contractors, and agencies generally belong to the creator unless there is a written assignment. Many businesses learn the hard way during a sale or dispute that they do not own the designs or creative content they’ve been using. 
• Registration. For U.S. works, registration is generally required before filing an infringement lawsuit, and timely registration preserves the right to seek statutory damages and attorneys’ fees. 
• Licenses and Third-party content. Don’t get sued because your business uses someone else’s copyrighted work without permission or in a way that exceeds the scope of a license. We confirm that your use of stock images, fonts, and software stays within license terms. Copyright owners, particularly photographers, routinely use software to search the internet for their copyrighted images and will often demand payment of $15,000 or more to avoid a lawsuit. On the flip side, your business may also have valuable creative content that someone may want to license. Licensing can generate passive income in the form of regular royalty payments. We will review your assets and determine what licensing opportunities your business may have.
• Online protections. If your site hosts user content, a DMCA designated agent must be kept on file with the Copyright Office and renewed every three years.

Trademark Filing, Maintenance, and Proper Use

Your trademarks are how customers recognize and trust you. 

We review:

• Clearance and registration. Federal registration with the USPTO provides nationwide rights, the right to use the ® symbol, and the ability to enlist the assistance of U.S. Customs to help stop counterfeit imports before they enter the country.
• Coverage. Is your current logo registered, or only an older version? Do your registrations cover all your current products and services and the countries where you sell?
• Maintenance deadlines. U.S. registrations require a declaration of use between the fifth and sixth years and renewal every ten years. Missed deadlines mean cancellation. Eligible marks can also be made incontestable after five years of continuous use.
• Proper use. Inconsistent use or allowing a mark to become generic can weaken your rights.

Brand Protection and Enforcement

Registration gives you rights; enforcement keeps them strong. Owning a registered trademark adds credibility and value to your company. We help you build a strategy that may include trademark watch services, monitoring marketplaces and social media for counterfeits and impersonators, securing domain names and social handles, enrolling in platform programs such as Amazon Brand Registry, and sending cease-and-desist letters and takedown notices when needed.

Licensing and Contracts

Contracts often decide who actually controls your IP. We review license agreements on behalf of licensor and licensee, employee and contractor agreements for IP assignment and confidentiality terms, co-branding and collaboration agreements, and change-of-control clauses that can affect a future sale. Trademark licenses must include quality control provisions, since a license without them puts your rights at risk.

Music and Sound Licensing for Restaurants, Hospitality, and Retail

Playing music in a restaurant, bar, hotel, gym, salon, or store is generally a public performance under copyright law and requires permission from the rights holders. A personal Spotify or Apple Music subscription does not cover business use, and neither does playing a CD or download.

Most businesses license public performance rights through performing rights organizations such as ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, and GMR. Each represents a different catalog of songs, so one license rarely covers everything you play. Some commercial background music services include these licenses; many do not.

Our audit reviews:

• Background music played over speakers
• Live bands, DJs, karaoke, and special events
• Radio and TV played for customers, and whether the limited exemption for smaller establishments applies, which depends on square footage, speaker and screen counts, and whether you charge admission
• Music on hold
• Music in ads, videos, and social media posts, which requires separate synchronization and master recording rights. Songs available to personal social media accounts are often not cleared for business accounts.
• Hotel ballrooms, event spaces, and outside entertainment vendors

Rights organizations actively monitor businesses, and unlicensed use can lead to statutory damages for each song plus attorneys’ fees. A review now costs far less than resolving a claim later.