Generating and protecting a

business ideaAS Business Studies

Aims and Objectives

Aim:•To understand how entrepreneurs generate business ideas.

Objectives:•Describe advantages and disadvantages of knowing product or spotting a gap in the market.•Analyse methods of generating ideas.•Evaluate methods of generating business ideas and conducting research.

Task 1

Read the case study and answer the questions..

1.Explain the main reasons why Jennifer decided to start her own business.

2. Identify the strengths and weaknesses of her early decisions when starting up

Questions

3 main sources of business ideas:

Business experience

Personal experience

Observation

Sources of business ideas

This is when entrepreneurs develop an idea from their experiences of working in a particular field.

• Better insights into customer needs and wants• knowledge of competitors, pricing,distribution

channels, suppliers etc• less need for start up market research• more realistic assumptions of sales, costs• industry contacts can be potential customers

Business Experience

• Pursue a hobby/interest• Ideas derive from bad experiences• Looking at ways to innovate current

products or services• Try to turn hobbies into a business

Personal experience

• Looking at what products are available in other countries and not released in UK

• Simple conversations with strangers can lead to an innovative business idea.

Observation

Students are coming back to school from their holidays. They are expected to arrive between 11.00 a.m. and 6.00 pm and the school is about 800 metres from where their taxis drop them. Tired as they are, they wonder how to carry their luggage to the halls. They have suitcases, mattresses, bags, etc. Most of them have travelled long distances and are already hungry or very thirsty yet the school does not start serving meals until 7.30 p.m.

1. Suggest business opportunities that can be generated out of the above school situation.

2. Rank your business ideas.3. Describe what you would need to get your preferred business

idea running.4. What are the likely challenges you may face in your business?

Task 2

A franchise is an arrangement in which an established business name is sold to an individual or company, who can then start trading under that name. Many fast food restaurants such as KFC and Pizza Hut operate franchises.

There are two parties involved in a franchise:

Franchise

Read the following case study and answer the questions… You can do this in pairs

Task 3

Questions

•What are the 3 sources of business idea?

•What is a franchise?•What is a franchisee?•What is a franchisor?•Give three examples of a franchise.•What are some the benefits and drawbacks of a franchise?

Recap

•Understand different ways to protect a business idea.

•Understand the importance of protecting a business idea.

LO

● A patent protects new inventions and covers how things work, what they do, how they do it, what they are made of and how they are made. If a patent application is granted, it gives the owner the ability to take a legal action under civil law to try to stop others from making, using, importing or selling the invention without permission.

● This may involve suing the alleged infringer through the courts, which is costly and time consuming because it involves expert legal advice. The patent owner needs to be able to pay for this civil legal action and advice themselves, although they may get some costs back if they win their case.

Protecting a business idea

Intellectual property is something you create that’s unique.

It includes copyright, patents, designs and trademarks, and can be:

• something you invent, like a new product

• a product’s design or appearance

• a brand or logo

• written work, like content on a website or in a brochure

• artistic work, like photography or illustrations

• film recordings or musical compositions

• computer software

You can’t protect an idea - but you can often protect what you do with it.

For example, you can’t protect an idea for a book. But if you write it, you can

protect the words you’ve written.

A Patent can last for up to 20 years

Patent AKA Intellectual Property (IP)

Copyright protects original:

• literary and written work, like published novels or content on websites

• dramatic, musical and artistic works and their performances

• television, film, sound and music recordings

• computer software

• illustration and photography

You automatically get copyright protection when you create something original

– you don’t need to register.

But before making your work public, you should mark it with:

• the copyright symbol (©)

• the copyright holder’s name

• the year the work was created

This gives you more protection, as it shows others that it’s covered by copyright

and who owns it.

Copyright

When your work is protected by copyright

To be protected by copyright, your work must:

• be original (you’ll need to be able to prove that you’ve made a significant

creative contribution to it)

• physically exist (it can’t be just an idea)

Copyright in the UK lasts for the rest of the creator’s life plus 70 years.

Copyright overseas

● UK copyright is automatically valid in countries who have signed the Berne

Convention.

● How long copyright lasts in these countries varies, but it’s usually a

minimum of 50 years (25 years for photographs).

Copyright 2

● A trademark is a something that makes your brand recognisable, like a

logo or a sound.

● Registering a trademark lets you stop other people from using it without

your permission.

● To register a trademark, it must be clearly different from any trademarks

already registered for the same type of products or services.

● It gives the business the right to prevent others from using an identical or

confusingly similar mark on goods and services that are the same (or

similar) to the trademarked product

● A trademark registration lasts 10 years and is only valid in the country of

registration. You can renew it every 10 years.

Trademarks

Read the following case study and answer the questions… You can do this in pairs

Task 4

End of Chapter 2

Test on Chapter 1 and 2 on

Thursday!! Please Revise