Taking Your Tradition-based Business Online

In an increasingly interconnected world, businesses around the world are taking their goods and services online. This shift to online markets, including those available through the various social media platforms, offers new opportunities for Indigenous and local community entrepreneurs to actively promote and expand their businesses, reaching their customers in a more direct and convenient manner. With increased access, however, come new intellectual property (IP) challenges. While the benefits of doing business online can be great, Indigenous and local community entrepreneurs must determine early on how they will develop appropriate intellectual property strategies to safeguard their and their communities’ interests in the digital economy.

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Protecting your tradition-based goods and services with IP

Explore our top tips for Indigenous and local community entrepreneurs looking to take advantage of intellectual property.

Here are 6 tips to help Indigenous and local community entrepreneurs take their businesses online

1. Register your business name, logo and domain name (internet address) as trademarks

2. Use copyright or industrial designs to protect the design and other creative content on your online business platform

3. Do not disclose culturally sensitive, secret, sacred or commercially valuable information online

4. Raise awareness on the uniqueness and authenticity of your products and services

Help your customers and social media followers know that there is meaning and value behind your goods and services through effective digital storytelling strategies. Digital storytelling can contribute to creating an emotional link with your audience and facilitate sharing of information about the uniqueness of your goods and services and their link to your traditional knowledge and your community. These strategies can be reinforced by the use of certain intellectual property tools, such as certification marks, which can help enable brand recognition and raise public awareness as to the authenticity or other qualities of goods and services marketed under the mark. In this context, labels may also be used to provide context or educational information that intellectual property may not be able to convey.

5. Be vigilant and proactive in protecting your online content

It is your responsibility to monitor the web for unauthorized uses of your online content and intellectual property assets. If you have intellectual property rights, make it known, for example, by using trademark and copyright notices correctly, distinctively, and as much as possible. Carefully monitor your intellectual property assets, including your trademarks, copyright or industrial design protected materials that are shared via your website or social media accounts, taking action when necessary. Keep in mind that enforcing your intellectual property rights can be expensive. In some cases, the most practical course of action would be to have the infringing materials taken off the web as soon as possible. Some websites have intellectual property enforcement departments, where complaints can be lodged and investigated, and takedown requests can be made.