If you’re looking for an area of law to specialize in, intellectual property law is a good option because it’s a growth area right now. Businesses increasingly run on the strength of their ideas and more money is being made through the sale of concepts and information, rather than the sale of physical products. That means that protecting intellectual property is a bigger concern for companies than it has ever been in the past, and there is a lot of work out there for legal firms that specialize in this branch of the law.
If you’re trying to establish a practice and build authority as a professional in your chosen area, you need to start networking in the right industries. All industries will need legal advice on protecting their intellectual property at some point. However, there are certain areas of business where it is a lot more important and it’s those areas that you should focus on when trying to build a client base for your new practice. These are the best industries to target if you are an intellectual property lawyer.
The Tech Industry
The tech industry is one of the main reasons that intellectual property law is a growing field. The industry moves incredibly quickly and if companies are going to stay relevant, they need to be innovating all of the time. The value in the majority of tech products is not the product itself, but the patent on the technology behind it. If a company can come up with a new way of doing things and patent it so their rivals cannot recreate it, they stand to make a lot of money. In order to keep up, companies are constantly taking out patents on new technologies. As a result, there are a lot of opportunities for lawyers that deal with patenting and copyright issues in the tech industry.
The Fashion Industry
Counterfeiting can be a problem for any business and if they find that people are using their product patent or brand without permission, they may be forced to take legal action. If you’re looking to deal with cases of this kind, the fashion industry is one of the best areas to consider because fake designer clothes are incredibly common. A lot of these fakes are almost as good as the real thing, and that poses a big problem for fashion companies, so they’re making more of an effort to pursue people in court for selling fakes.
The Oil And Gas Industry
As oil reserves begin to dry up, drilling companies are forced to move on from easy to access sites that have been depleted and are now facing new challenges as they attempt to extract oil from more difficult terrain. That means that the industry has changed a lot and the most successful companies are the ones that can develop the best technology for drilling in difficult terrain. In order to protect that competitive edge, companies need to patent and copyright their innovations, so the oil and gas industry is a fast growing area of interest for intellectual property lawyers.
These are the best areas to focus on if you want to build a client base for a practice that specializes in intellectual property law.
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