The importance of an evolving intellectual property strategy

An intellectual property strategy is an ever-evolving plan. Often, a company starts with one path in mind, but finds, as their business grows, that they need to adjust due to new opportunities.

The teams at Enhanced Medical Nutrition (EMN) and Gruppo Nutrition (formly Infinit Nutrition Canada) are growing alongside their intellectual property strategies. Together, the companies have been developing a plant-based protein supplement and utilizing trade secrets in order to protect their formulations. This initial plan has served them well so far, but recently they’ve found further growth will involve expanding their asset types.

“The decision to focus on this trade secret was based around the design of a food product that would be extremely difficult to reverse engineer. However, as we are determining all our intellectual property options, we have been looking into patents and working on specific trademarks to protect against trademark infringement,” EMN co-founder and CEO Eric Zimmerman said.

Part of this journey to a new strategy has involved working with intellectual strategy experts to help learn more about the path forward. This has led them to discover more about filing times, needs related to international filings and other areas of intellectual property strategies they hadn’t previously considered.

At the same time, EMN and Gruppo have been partnering with McMaster University to help develop their products, leading to other considerations related to intellectual property.

“Working collaboratively with a university will provide us with specific biological impacts of the plant protein we are developing. These impacts in turn give us greater insight into the novel potential of our product,” Zimmerman said.

Furthermore, as noted by Gruppo Nutrition President and CEO Darcy Haggith, “successes we have gained from working collaboratively have been the exchange of information, access to contacts with resources we don’t have and helping us identify some key issues, including whether any background or third-party intellectual property is required and how background and project intellectual property will be treated and ownership and licensing rights.”

While their intellectual property journey hasn’t come without its challenges—particularly related to obtaining trademarks and expanding their intellectual property into other jurisdictions—the teams at EMN and Gruppo have enjoyed expanding their intellectual property knowledge. They credit plenty of resources and experts for both this learning experience and the evolution of their strategy, and encourage others to pursue the same path.

“Since developing a clear IP strategy is not a clear-cut path, working with Protein Industries Canada has provided us the ability to access much needed assistance to determine where to start with our IP,” Zimmerman said. “Identify the right people and resources that can help you early in your project. Take the time to understand the different types of IP available, the resources you need to secure it and the value the protection will bring.”