When purchasing a small business, many buyers overlook one important aspect of the deal: transferring intellectual property rights. Typically, IP rights include copyrights, trademarks, patents, and other non-disclosure rights. I’ve highlighted three basic questions you should always ask before you purchase a small business.
Can you and do you want to transfer the business’ trademarks?
In some situations even if the trademarks are transferable, you may not want to transfer them. For example, the business’ logo may infringe on rights of another business. You obviously wouldn’t want to transfer ownership and risk being held liable for trademark infringement once you own the logo.
In other instances, the trademarks may not be transferable if the seller does not have the right to transfer…