What happens to your intellectual property if something happens to you—or your business?
Many businesses spend years building valuable intellectual property without ensuring it's owned, documented or capable of being transferred.
Services
Protecting what you've built so it's ready to pass on, sell or survive without you, whenever that day comes.
Ownership structures
Making sure your business, and everything valuable in it, is actually owned by the right entity, not left sitting in an individual's name by accident, including whether a holding structure makes sense to separate your valuable assets from your trading risk.
Successor director appointments
Making sure your company has a plan for who steps into a director's role if something happens to you, so the business can keep operating without a governance gap.
Corporate powers of attorney
Putting the right authority in place so someone you trust can act for your company, not just for you personally, if you're unavailable or incapacitated.
Succession
Planning how ownership, control and responsibility pass on, whether that's to family, a co-founder or a management team, before it becomes an urgent decision made under pressure.
Estate planning
Making sure your business interests are properly accounted for in your broader estate plan, so what happens to the business is your decision, not left to default rules.
Executors
Helping executors understand what they're actually responsible for when a business owner passes away, so valuable assets like IP and contracts aren't accidentally lost or overlooked.
Business sales
Getting your business genuinely ready for sale, from clean ownership records to transferable contracts, so due diligence is a formality rather than a hurdle, whether you're the one selling or the one buying.
Founder exits
Structuring a founder's departure so it's clear, documented and doesn't leave the remaining business (or the departing founder) exposed.
Licensing
Setting up agreements that let someone else use your IP properly, whether that's a related entity, a franchisee or a commercial partner, without giving away more than you intended.
Resources
A real dispute over who actually owned a well-known brand, and what it means for founders who haven't locked down ownership in writing.
A guest interview looking at how easily valuable IP can be lost through an estate if it isn't properly identified and protected beforehand.
What happens to a family business's brand, systems and know-how when ownership isn't clearly separated from the people running it
A landmark ownership dispute over one of Australia's most recognisable pieces of packaging, and a reminder that even household brands can get this wrong.
Is your business sale-ready?
Whether you're actively planning an exit or just want to be ready if the right offer comes along, buyers look well beyond the numbers. They want to understand what they're actually stepping into, legally.
Structure
Your ownership structure, whether it's a company, trust or partnership, needs to support the kind of sale you're planning. Outdated or overly complicated ownership arrangements are one of the first things that slow buyers down.
Governance records
Shareholder details, director information, company constitutions and registers should be accurate and current. Gaps here can stall due diligence before it's even properly started.
Key contracts
Supplier, customer, lease and employment agreements should be clearly documented and easily transferable. A buyer wants certainty about what they're taking on, not surprises buried in a filing cabinet.
Intellectual property
This is often one of the most valuable, and most overlooked, parts of a sale. Business names, trade marks, domains, copyright and customer databases all need to be registered to the company itself, not to an individual founder, and any third-party licences need to be checked for transferability.
A business that's legally sound, well-documented and transparent will always attract stronger offers and smoother negotiations.
Common Questions
Who owns intellectual property in a company?
It depends entirely on how your business is structured and what's actually been documented. IP created by employees during their employment is generally owned by the company, but IP created by contractors, founders before incorporation, or informal collaborators often isn't automatically assigned anywhere. It's a surprisingly common gap, and one worth checking rather than assuming.
What happens to IP when a business is sold?
A buyer expects your trade marks, copyright, domains and other IP to transfer cleanly as part of the sale. If ownership isn't properly documented beforehand, this can slow down or derail a deal, or lead to a lower offer while the buyer prices in the uncertainty.
What is intellectual property due diligence?
It's the process a buyer (or their lawyers) goes through to confirm exactly what IP a business owns, whether it's properly registered, and whether there are any gaps or disputes that could affect its value. The more organised your IP is before this starts, the smoother it goes.
What happens to my business if I die or become incapacitated?
Without a plan in place, this often defaults to a mix of your company's constitution, general succession law and whatever your will says, which may not line up with what actually needs to happen for the business to keep running. Successor director appointments and corporate powers of attorney exist specifically to close this gap.
Do I need a separate plan for my business, or does my will cover it?
Your will deals with your personal estate, but a company is a separate legal entity, so a will alone often isn't enough to keep it running smoothly. Business succession planning and estate planning need to work together, not sit as two disconnected documents.
What happens to customer data and digital assets when a business changes hands?
These are often overlooked until a sale is already underway. Customer databases, domains and other digital assets need to be clearly owned by the business and properly documented, the same as any other asset, so they transfer as part of the deal rather than becoming a last-minute complication.
Not sure whether you actually own what you've built?
Take the free IP Risk & Ownership Audit, or book a strategy call if you're ready to talk it through.
