A personal injury is when you are injured due to someone else’s negligence. A typical example of a personal injury is a car accident. For example, if a person is texting and hits another vehicle, or if they look away from the road for a moment and rear end someone at a stoplight, this can cause a personal injury of the person that was struck. Whiplash is a common injury in car accidents where a person experiences neck problems, as a personal injury lawyer can explain. However, injuries are not always caused by the immediate people around you. Product liability is a big part of personal injury, which means that a product hurt someone when they used it. This is where intellectual property ties in.

Intellectual Property Protections

Creating a new product and introducing it to potential consumers is an extremely exciting time for companies. These products are the lifeblood of businesses, so they must be protected. By registering product designs, logos, and names, companies can ensure that competitors are not able to exactly replicate their products.

However, if a person is injured by said products, is the company’s intellectual property protected?

If a product is involved in a personal injury case, many different types of evidence may be required for the case such as blueprints, schematics, designs, photos, videos, operating manuals, and more. A court case is normally available via public records. That means if a company shares their patented blueprint, a competitor can see the blueprint if they look up the case. While intellectual property laws protect the company, all it may take for a competitor to make a better version of the product is a quick glance at those blueprints.

Balancing A PI Case With IP Rights

As a business, you may need to protect your company if a consumer is claiming a product hurt them. Sharing the design behind a product can prove that it was not used in the intended manner by the person who purchased it. However, you will need to ensure that your intellectual property rights are respected throughout the case.

As our friends at Cohen & Cohen can explain, you can ask for court-ordered protective measures that restrict the court in what information it can use and share. Within this same vein, you can also ask for the court to review sensitive materials privately to determine if they even need to be used in a case if the opposing party is claiming some piece of evidence is detrimental to their case.

You can also limit the scope of evidence requests. This means if a customer is claiming a hinge on a product pinched their hand, you can ask to only provide the blueprint for the hinge itself to show that pinching is not possible instead of providing the entire schematics for the product of which the hinge is a part.

It is also possible to establish NDAs so that IP information cannot be shared outside of the case. Another route to protect your information could be to ask that the court seal all records of the case specifically pertaining to IP materials so that the public cannot see them after the case has completed.

Or, it may be possible with your case that expert witnesses can be brought in to testify on your behalf. For example, discussing the hinge on a product once more, your lawyer can bring in a product safety expert who can demonstrate that it is not possible to pinch fingers with your product. An expert may provide all that is needed instead of providing sensitive materials. However, each case is unique and complex, which is why you should reach out to an attorney near you for help.