Legal Issues in Growing a Venture
From Entrepedia: The Entrepreneurship Wiki
Your business can be as successful as any – profitable, highly recommended, award winning – but if you haven't paid close enough attention to the legal issues involved with running a business, it can cause devastating, if not fatal, effects to your business in the end. If you are providing a newly invented product you will need to be familiar with patent protection. What about any intellectual property – who can claim ownership over it? What happens if you fall out with your business director? If at any time these questions are raised, it would be far better to be able to confidently answer them than to face the consequences that occur when you can't.
Directors
It is all too common for business founders and directors to "fall out", although hopefully this won't happen to your venture. This can mean dispute, and can have a particularly harsh effect if both are shareholders as well.
Solicitors
Solicitors, while a necessary part of running a business, can become quite expensive, but there are ways of avoiding letting your legal fees multiply. If you are aware of the situation and of potential additional fees, you can help keep costs down.
Intellectual Property
It is important for any entrepreneur to understand intellectual property law and how it will concern their business or business idea specifically.
Copyrights and Trademarks
Copyright and trademarks - an intellectual property right - are in fact very different things, and therefore it is important to familiarise yourself with both terms and their individual definitions.
Patents
Patent protection is granted to inventions, so understanding patenting will be specifically important if your business involves or is centered around a new invention.
Legal Issues: Website Design
Most businesses will rely on their website to draw in customers and promote their product or service, so it is important to make sure that your website complies with all IPR and design legislation.
On-line Contracts
Many businesses will want to use their sites in order to buy and sell products on‑line. Given this, one key issue is the way in which they will enter into contracts with their customers over the internet. The same requirements for off-line contracts have to be fulfilled in order to ensure that an on-line contract is legally binding.
Website Compliance
Making sure that your website complies with design IPRs and other legislation, there are some questions that you need to ask and changes that you may need to implement.
For links to more information about legal issues, click here
