MAJCAFE

Nazura Abdul Manap, Haniff Ahamat
Faculty of Law, University Kebangsaan Malaysia

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Abstract

In most jurisdictions in the world, Intellectual Property (IP) related economy is often driven by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). However, due to the lack of awareness of IP, newly invented products such as trade-names, new technology, know-how and other creative works are not always fully deployed by the SMEs. These circumstances will lead to a major economic harm as the superior opponents in the market will benefit from this situation by exploiting the inventions without having to remunerate the inventor or creator in the form of financial outcome. Thus, it is imperative to safeguard the ample protection of IP invention to disallow possible infringement, and at the same time profiting by alleviating the IP assets into a meaningful market value. The proper IP ecosystem will enable SMEs to exploit the full potential of their capacity which usually lead to profit-making that encourage the creation of new inventions. Hence, it is the objective of this paper to discuss the position of small-medium enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia; to analyse the development of Intellectual Property rights amongst SMEs in Malaysia; and to identify the challenges and how to overcome the problems in managing IP amongst SMEs in Malaysia. This study is a qualitative research and analyses data using content and critical analysis. The result of this study indicates that the significant value in the intangible assets of Intellectual Property is pertinent in improving the worth of SME business entities, thus it is very important for the SMEs to strategize comprehensively in exploiting their IP assets.

Keywords: Intellectual property, SMEs, Malaysia National Intellectual Property Policy, SME Corporation Malaysia