- Do you worry about PCB manufacturers copying your PCB design?
- How PCB design should be protected by intellectual property
- Write at the end
If the core competency of the business you are conducting is your PCB design and manufacturing technology, and you have to contract to manufacture it, if not, then you will be doomed from the start.
If your design is unique, or if you have found an excellent manufacturing process that you want to protect, you will have to either get IP on your PCB design, keep it as a trade secret, or be responsible for the entire manufacturing yourself, or both. This is the only way you can entirely protect your design or process.
If you can’t manufacture it yourself, the other way is to get your design patented while seeking cooperation from a trusted PCB manufacturer and signing a confidentiality agreement.
Do you worry about PCB manufacturers copying your PCB design?
Most hardware startups do not care if the contractor will copy their “hardware”. You might be a little surprised. What most manufacturers do nowadays is to turn your design into an actual PCB product and put it in firmware or software. The board is almost useless without the firmware for the processor/controller/FPGA. That’s why you need a PCB manufacturer.
Under the whole supply chain of the market now, I no longer need to design my PCB; I can just let the contractor design for me. Although most manufacturers can only produce and assemble PCB products, a small number of PCB manufacturers are on the market to accumulate a lot of PCB manufacturing experience and an experienced team, including a PCB design team. This part of the business can provide you with better PCB design without worrying about your design being copied and influenced by the PCB manufacturer.
Of course, your PCB design can also be copied after manufacturing and assembly. Everyone must buy it from you and reverse engineer it. Even if it is a multilayer board or you remove some components in a screen print, you will have to add them to your finished product, and you will have no control over them unless you intend to use them within your organization.
In most cases, you don’t have to worry too much about your contractor. Most contractors do not have overlapping businesses with their customers, although there are other situations. You need your competitors to get your PCB and reverse engineer it, something that there is no way to avoid.
How PCB design should be protected by intellectual property
We don’t want the product we have worked so hard to design copied and used directly by others. To protect our related designs, we can take several steps to protect your intellectual property (IP) in your PCB designs.
Use a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) when we work with contractors or other parties who may have access to your PCB design. NDAs are legally binding agreements that prohibit the disclosure of proprietary information to third parties. And use secure file storage and sharing system to protect your PCB design files from unauthorized access. This may include using a password-protected file-sharing platform or storing your files on a secure cloud-based server.
It is also important to obtain a patent or trademark for your PCB design (if applicable). Patents protect new, useful and non-obvious inventions, while trademarks protect branding elements such as logos and product names. Consider using encryption to protect your PCB design files when producing and manufacturing related products. This helps prevent unauthorized access and tampering with your designs by PCB manufacturers.
One final point that many overlooks are that you must regularly review and update your IP protection strategies to ensure they are fully effective. Just in case your competitors take advantage of the protection time gap to compete unfairly.
By taking these steps, you can help protect your intellectual property in your PCB designs and prevent unauthorized use or copying of your designs.
Write at the end
We need to respect the intellectual property rights of others and our own. But in this competitive business environment, we must use legal weapons to protect our designs, not only PCB designs. We should all be aware of intellectual property protection in our daily business activities to avoid unnecessary losses. If you want to know more, please read “How Should You Protect The Intellectual Property Rights Of Printed Circuit Boards?” and “how we can avoid competitors using PCB design drawings to copy the manufacture of printed circuit boards. Anpllopcb is a simple PCB design and manufacturing startup, and we can sign confidentiality documents and personalities to ensure that we respect our customers’ intellectual property rights. If you need related business, you can work with us.