Intellectual property attorney Maury Tepper, a partner at Womble Carlyle Sandridge and Rice, PLLC offers the following tips to help you better protect your copyrights, trademarks and other intellectual property.

• Register your trademarks and copyrighted works with U.S. Customs and Border Protection. This agency maintains an IP rights program to intercept illegally reproduced products before they enter the country. “You need to register your IP with Customs for them to be able to stop shipments,” said Tepper.

• Train U.S. Customs agents on the types of counterfeiting you’ve seen and what to look for. The agency offers guidelines for training modules.

• Look for partnership opportunities with trade associations and business alliances to pool resources for public awareness campaigns, and enforcement efforts. These organizations also take the pressure off individual companies that don’t want to offend their own customers.

• Educate your employees about the value of your organization’s IP, and of getting your corporate counsel involved early on in product development to better ensure your IP can be registered with the Patent and Trademark Office or the Copyright Office as appropriate, and then with Customs for protection.

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