What Redsbaby’s co-founders learned from an early failure to protect their product designs

When starting out in business, there are a million and one things to think about. One that can often get overlooked is the protection of designs. It is essential to have protection on all business designs, and it’s something that businesses often don’t think about until it’s far too late.

I learnt this the hard way with Redsbaby, the pram and baby product company I co-founded with my husband Brett in 2013. In the very early days of the business, another company copied our entire product line. A factory, which we had used unsuccessfully before finding our current manufacturer, had teamed up with another Australian brand and started producing a range based on our design and specs. We were distraught, but rather than pursuing a long and expensive legal battle, we decided to instead change our design and spend money on protecting our new and improved version, produced by our current manufacturer.

Although it was a long and somewhat irritating process, in hindsight it was a valuable lesson for us of the dangers of not protecting our business designs. It also enabled us to improve and perfect our design and to put an even better product out into the market.

Reflecting on this experience, here are my top tips on Intellectual Property (IP) Protection. Read more

Meagan Redelman - Dynamic Business - 27 June 2017