Intellectual Property Rights Investigation And Protection Process

Investigate the market to establish similar competition or better methods of accomplishing the same function

Discuss about the Intellectual Property Rights Investigation and Protection Process.

Intellectual property is referred to as a creation of new mind including invention, fictional as well as artistic activities. The term intellectual property is divided into two categories in terms of industrial property and copyright. The industrial property is gain comprises of inventions, trademarks, geographical indications, different industrial design basics etc on the other hand the copyright is comprises of films, music, drawings, photographs etc (Krishnamoorthy et al. 2014).  For this particular report the nominated intellectual property is energy storage system for mini wind turbines which is an industrial property.

 There are many companies which provide similar kind of service to the users, the market competitors rather better methods for accomplishing the similar function through interrogating registry of design and patent database for creating existence as well as non existence of the prior art are elaborated in this report. The investigation for the nominated topic should b followed accordingly. A protection plan for the IP using a flow chart and for protecting the IP a cot estimation plan is also developed in this report. 

There are many brilliant turbine platforms that provide batter technology for the users. Not only the implementation of the system but also the man factor that has to be consider for the wind turbine suppliers companies are its maintenance approach to make it survive in the competitive market.  In order to operate any mini sized wind turbine the energy is required to be stored properly in the system. The loan inventor is responsible to investigate the market competitors of the similar system suppliers. It has been found that there are many supplier companies such as Nordex (Germany), Ming Yang (China), United Power (China), GE (USA), Gamesa (Spain) etc that provides similar type of services to the users all over the country. The wind turbines together can manufacture account for the nearly three quarters of the installed capacity globally (Torreglosa et al. 2015). In order to make the suppliers stand out from beyond competition all the companies checks the balance sheet on a monthly basis. The percentage which indicates the market share is mentioned below:

Name of the companies Save Time On Research and Writing Hire a Pro to Write You a 100% Plagiarism-Free Paper. Get My Paper	Market share	About the company
Nordex	Germany (3.5%)	Since 1985, the company is supplying wind turbine and within two years of being founded it installed the largest series of wind turbine all over the world.  Due to extreme focus on reliability, service quality this is one of the leading wind turbine suppliers all over the world.
Ming Yang	Chin (3.6%)	This is one of the famous and largest turbine manufacturing companies which supplies services throughout successfully. In additional to this, This company gets high level support from the Chinese power companies.
United power	China (3.9%)	United Power is a supplier company which is headquartered in Beijing.  It has a diverse level of portfolio that delivers variety of settings of turbines to the users throughout.
Gamesa	Spain (4.6%)	This company delivers comprehensive maintenance ability to the users. For which the sales rate of the company has also reached a high scale of commercial success.  The energy market of china is almost occupied by the Gamesa.

After surveying the market level competitors of the wind turbine suppliers it has been found that protection of the intellectual property is a very important thing that has to be considered.  For beating the similar competitors, better method for accomplishing the similar functions are considered (Luo et al. 2015). The protection catalog applied for the wind turbine suppliers are needed to be unique enough. In order to protect the IP patent database and registry of patent database are also summarize on this report.

Interrogate the patents data to establish the existence or non-existence of prior art

The patent grants property right on any kind of invention allows the patent holders to prohibit all others from developing, selling. Not only has this but it also prevents other to use the similar patent for further innovation. With the help of invention many business can reach the top of commercial success for gaining the competitive advantages from the marketplace. With the help of US patent and trademark policies the users can get a patent through which the patent application can be filled (Mohammadi, Soleymani and Mozafari 2014). Three different types of patents are there such as utility, design and plant. Utility patent is referred to as the most common type of patent that covers different process, machines, articles, manufacture composition. Proper matter composition will help the company to gain thereby improvements. It has been found that the design patents can last for up to 14 years and on the other hand the plant patents lasts for around 20 years. However, bedsides all these consideration proper legal assistance is needed to protect information from the external misuse. With the help of legal protection none of the external users will be able to access the details of the intellectual properties (Kyle and Qian 2014). The wind turbines suppliers use different kind of technology and mechanism to develop the system for different environment. Based on the altitude the wind turbine differs and the speed of the turbines differs. Due to the IP protection mechanism none of the total cost and energy that may be generated also varies a lot and that can also keep secured from the external users for high level protection.   

The design details and the registry of design for the IP protecting patent also varies a lot based on the type or design of the system. Whether the system is ready to launch in the competitive market or not are tested by the government of Qatar. Not only this but also proper registry of design is also needed to launch any inventory product to the market (Dosi and Stiglitz 2014). For energy storage of the mini wind turbines the registry design should consider some of the policies and those are as follows:

• Initially the details of the system developer should be given
• Name of the design to be prepared should be given
• According to the IP protection policy assets for the design should be claimed
• Consideration of protection approach (trademark, patent or copyright)
• System detail blueprint representation
• Claiming the priority details and priority
• If priority is claimed then accordingly priority should be documented
• Assignment preparation if possible  

Based on the market trends and day by day frequently changing technology and application rate and profitability generated from the wind turbine also increases accordingly.  Comparing all the other renewable technologies, it has been found that the wind turbines are the system those are eligible for feed in traffic (Liu and La Croix 2015). It implies that with the help of the wind turbine the suppliers can sell their excess production of electricity into the grid. The profit level is dependent upon different energy production factors. The factors on which the profit of the wind turbine system depends are as follows:

• The expected output and the size of the turbine
• The height of the wind turbine is another factor that helps to gain profit also (for each meter the power generation increases by 1%).  
• The speed of the wind that the nominated area generally gets
• The usage of the stored energy along with the excessive energy that is exported to the grid
• Another thing that has to be consider include height of the wind turbine from the sea level
• The flow of the wind can also be affected by different obstacles such as tree, hills etc, thus distance of the turbines from the obstacles are also needed to be considered 

Interrogate the Registry of Designs

In order to gain effectives success from the competitive market and also for being the most successful wind turbine suppliers it is necessary for the suppliers to consider the main factor where the developers should invest (Stiglitz 2014). The intellectual property (IP) protection mechanism should not be very much formal in nature rather considering possible cost considering the market value the protection mechanism should have to be considered.

Domestic turbine is referred to as a smaller sized system which has lesser amount of expected output. In most of the cases it has been found that, the smaller domestic wind turbine offers reduce payable amount on the energy bills. Thus, enough amount of profit may not be obtained. It has been calculated rather measured that, most of the average households use energy near about 3,300 kWh every year. In addition to this, it is also determined that, the annual needs of the households can be covered completely with a 2.5 kW turbine generated wind (Buss and Peukert 2015). In order to install such system £ 12,560 cost is needed and if the other components are structured correctly then it is expected that the system will produce around 4,410 kWh amount of wind each year (Fromer 2015). It defines that this production will eventually have to give a £1,430 over feed tax. The below list shows the different turbine their benefits from the assumed conditions:

Condition	Time period	Wind and expected profit rate
Size of the developed system	–	1.5kw
Indicated tax for the system (including a tax rate of @5%)	–	£7,000
Expected system output (yearly basis)	–	2,600 kWh
Income bill savings estimated for the first year	–	£ 478.90
Breakeven point (Average)	18 yrs 5 months	–
Estimated income over 29 years	–	£9696.60
Size of the system	–	2.5 kw
System cost (including tax rate of @5%)	–	£12,000
Expected yearly output	–	4.400 kwh
Breakeven point (average)	8 yrs 5 months	–
Income over the 20 years	–	£14,000.50

Considering the average speed of wind as 5.6m/s, in Qatar it has been the profit range that may be obtained are estimated. The ranges of factors those are outlines above are considered for predicting the actual system outputs. Wherever the speed of wind is higher, higher mounted turbines are installed. It is assumed that 50% system usage rate around 5k, for a 10kW system and also 12.5% for the 15 kW systems. The rate of inflation and the details of the generated energy from the wind turbine are elaborated in the table developed above. Where the average speed of wind is about 6.9meter/second the cost of the system is estimated as £ 90,000. The feed on tax is estimated nearly about $4,000with a bill of energy for £48,000 (Brüggemann, Crosetto, Meub and Bizer 2016). For the small wind turbine system the annual earning and the bill for energy is estimated as £10,700. From the commercial undertakings it can be said that the decision on cost management estimated for the energy storage for wind turbine system is absolutely correct.   

Define a market or markets and determine the probable market value per annum

The decision for designing and protecting the intellectual property from the external attacker different decision and protection policies are considered. For energy storage of the mini wind turbine system the decision or phases those have been mentioned absolutely positive. The protection policy is developed considering the patent protection act because according to this particular act none of the external system developer system using the similar design outline (Mohammadi, Soleymani and Mozafari 2014). The phases considered for this particular project is finally completed followed by the development of a priority documentation. The phases maintained for the final decision are positive from the business and consumer’s point of view.    

• Identifying Intellectual properties for developing the wind turbine
• Estimating hardware equipments
• Estimating software and its application
• Training and development arrangement for the project team members
• 5% tax consideration

Cost-Benefit – INPUT VALUES
Hardware equipment	£         25,000.00
Necessary Software	£           5,000.00
Salaries for project team members	£         12,000.00
Training and Development	£           2,500.00
Total Development Cost	£         44,500.00
Machinery	£         10,000.00
Software applications	£           1,500.00
Labor resource costs	£         10,000.00
Total Operational Cost	£         21,500.00
Approximate savings on salary	£      1,00,000.00
Reduced cost for operations	£         40,000.00
Total Benefit	£      1,40,000.00
Discount Rate Used	5.00%
Project Cost-Benefit Analysis
Analysis Variables:
Discount Rate Used	5.00%
Annual Benefits	£  1,40,000.00
Annual Operational Costs	£     21,500.00
One-Time Development Cost	£     44,500.00
				Year of Project
		0	1	2	3	4	5	TOTALS
Economic Benefit		£            –	£1,40,000.00	£1,40,000.00	£   1,40,000.00	£ 1,40,000.00	£   1,40,000.00
Discount Rate		£         1.00	£           0.95	£           0.91	£              0.86	£           0.82	£              0.78
PV of Benefits		£            –	£1,33,333.33	£1,26,984.13	£   1,20,937.26	£ 1,15,178.35	£   1,09,693.66
NPV of all BENEFITS		£            –	£1,33,333.33	£2,60,317.46	£   3,81,254.72	£ 4,96,433.07	£   6,06,126.73	£    6,06,126.73
One-Time COSTS		-£ 44,500.00
Recurring Costs		£            –	-£   21,500.00	-£   21,500.00	-£      21,500.00	-£   21,500.00	-£      21,500.00
Discount Rate		£         1.00	£           0.95	£           0.91	£              0.86	£           0.82	£              0.78
PV of Recurring Costs		£            –	-£   20,476.19	-£   19,501.13	-£      18,572.51	-£   17,688.10	-£      16,845.81
NPV of all COSTS		-£ 44,500.00	-£   64,976.19	-£   84,477.32	-£   1,03,049.83	-£ 1,20,737.94	-£   1,37,583.75	-£    1,37,583.75
Overall NPV								£    4,68,542.99
Overall ROI
								3.4055
Break-even Analysis
Yearly NPV Cash FLOW		-£ 44,500.00	£1,12,857.14	£1,07,482.99	£   1,02,364.76	£   97,490.24	£      92,847.85
Overall NPV Cash FLOW		-£ 44,500.00	£   68,357.14	£1,75,840.14	£   2,78,204.89	£ 3,75,695.13	£   4,68,542.99

In order to protect the intellectual property a proper plan is needed to be developed by the service providers. Besides the development of the plan it has to be maintained accordingly by the system suppliers. After analyzing the energy storage for mini wind turbine system, it has been found that an appropriate IP protection plan is needed to be developed to avoid cost and environmental issues (Kyle and Qian 2014). Security is not needed for the physical properties but also it is needed for the intellectual property. In order to protect the Intellectual Properties (IP), the phases those are considered are developed through a flowchart: 

For any business the most valuables assets include images, logos and feedback given by the consumers. However, there are lower cost and common steps to be taken for protecting the intellectual; properties accordingly. The developed IP protection plan is consists of the following:

Identification of the IP: This is the first step of protecting intellectual property. At first the IP, which is comprises of three different types such as patent, copyright and trademark should be identified properly. If it is found that the developers have invented any particular new, useful or ornamental system, then no one else will be able to modify or patent it. Patent can protect a system for around 20 years (Stiglitz 2014). On the other hand, copyright can protect all manifestation of ideas. Copyright is possible in case of books, music, movie, drawing mainly for arts whereas; trademark is a term that is completely related to commerce. With the help of trademark protection the brand name, logos and all other distinct design details can also be eventually protected accordingly.

Categorization of the business assets: After analyzing the details of the intellectual property, it has been found that based on different criteria the business assets should be categorized. If the suppliers have any particular monetary potential for their newly developed products or system, then business asset categorization is strictly required (Dosi and Stiglitz 2014). Books, music, script websites these kinds of assets can be protected under the copyright. However, as the project is focused on energy storage for the mini wind turbine, thus it falls under the trademark protection.  However, in this phase the most important thing that has to be considered is business asset categorization.   

Decision making on viability

Prioritization of intellectual property: This is the third phase of IP protection. Technically it can be said that, each memo of the company can produce its own intellectual property.  However, the supplier needs not to register along with the copyright offices. For the success of the company it is very much important to protect all the confidential properties. It may be the cost estimated for each project development phase and may be the risk management plan developed to keep the IP secured from outsourcing (Battisti et al. 2015). With the help of a catalog the critical intellectual properties can eventually help develop program to protect the IP.   

Confidentiality policy implementation in the company manual: For the wind turbine suppliers the IP are their consumers, subscription package details, the cost estimated for the IP and the total amount of the energy that is getting stored in the system and how the system is helping the company to gain commercial success simultaneously are the confidential data for the company. A protection policy is required to be incorporated by the system suppliers to maintain the security of the IP. In order to protect the confidential data either simple statements can be used.

Executing non disclosure agreements with both the employees and the contractors: With both the employees and the suppliers the non disclosure agreements should have to be developed (Correa 2018). For patent protection and copyright cases this particular type of fdisclo9sure agreement setup stands very much beneficial. Considering all the necessary legal resources, the confidentiality agreement should be prepared in this phase of IP protection plan development.

Non-compete agreement signing along with the employees and the contractors: The agreement established between the consumers and the service providers must not be disclosed by the users. Even the agreement should be developed in a such a way so that no one can compete it without permission.

Contact to IP attorney: If any time it is defined that the Intellectual Properties have been theft by the external and unauthorized employees or even consumers then self help options should be incorporated (Ruitenburg et al. 2014). This litigation approach is little difficult and thus should never be taken without proper legal assistance. It is expected that proper legal assistance will definitely reduce the level of complication.    

From the overall discussion it can be said that there are many small wind turbine suppliers which provides valuable and quality service to the users. Some of the suppliers have incorporated battery technology to their wind turbine system. The turbine system will be able to store small amount of short-term energy for completing the system. Without incurring any kind of high value cost into the system this system can be eventually implemented. Even the system developers are not required to incur any high cost farm level battery into it. It allows three different software applications to run in the system. The short term predictable power producers not only act as a power producer but also the wind turbines allow the power supply to make decision those have been informed by the data. For the mini wind storage the energy storage system implemented by the developers allows three software application to run, those are all battery enabled and also can integrate the work provides high level benefits as well. In order to protect the intellectual property from both internal and external attacks an accurate protection mechanism has been developed in this report. Besides the IP protection plan an accurate flow chart is also developed for successful implementation of the energy storage system for mini wind turbine system.     

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