Start-up means;
- An entity, incorporated or registered in India
- Not older than five years,
- Annual turnover does not exceeding INR 25 crore in any preceding financial year,
- Working towards innovation, development, deployment or commercialization of new products, processes or services driven by technology or intellectual property.
Innovation & Start-Up
As Innovation and Intellectual property are the main pillars of the Start-Up India scheme, every startup has a brand name, logo, designs, and products, inventions that are to be protected through IP rights. Prior to the launch of a product or any invention, the startup has to ensure that the invention doesn’t infringe any third party intellectual property that can lead to unwarranted litigation and thwart its business activities.
The primary step for any startup is to evaluate its IP and prioritize various forms of IP involved in business. Sometimes intellectual property is the only valuable asset for business at the time selling the entity. Thus, it is important for startups to understand the IP rights and register the same in order to claim protection and commercialization.
For any startup to achieve long-term growth and success, it is necessary to lay clear and effective IP policies that will be created or acquired in future by the management. The aim of such policies is to ensure there is no dispute between the business and promoters which can lead to failure of the venture. Startups need to implement IP strategies that can make business not only grow by leaps and bounds but also exploit IP for licensing or cross-licensing in future.