The importance of Intellectual Property at your fingertips

For this Friday’s fact, we need to look no further than our fingertips.

Do you know the QWERTY keyboard was invented by Christopher Sholes in 1873? It takes its name from the first six letters on the top left of your keyboard.

The theory is during the development of typewriters, the layout of keys on a QWERTY keyboard came about to prevent commonly used characters jamming. There are some interesting alternatives to this theory. But either way this layout allowing for quicker typing and fewer mistakes has stayed. As we’re now all familiar with this universal keyboard – it’s a good job Scholes put a patent on his idea to protect his ‘Intellectual Property (IP).

Skipping forward from Sholes’ invention and the importance of protecting your IP is still paramount. Clients often ask us ‘Can I patent my product?’ when working on a new concept. With over thirty years of experience and six patents ourselves, we are in a strong position to answer this question. Cost, timings and scale are all things to consider and it can feel like a complex decision.

We provide advice on cost-effective design IP options. ‘How?’ We ease the part in the process for Patents and Design Rights with our high-quality technical drawings. From an initial sketch or CAD files, we take these and create the images in the correct format for the IP process. Don’t forget we provide clients with a Non-Disclosure Agreement too, giving assurance that their information is safe.

We’re always happy to help – please give us a call to discuss protecting your IP. Or you can put your QWERTY keyboard to more use and get in touch online with any enquiries.