Guide to Starting and Running

Protecting your rights and your
manufactured product
Early in the process of creating a new product you will 
want to protect your ideas and innovations from people 
who want to take advantage of them without giving you 
due credit (or due compensation!) .
Non-Disclosure Agreements.
When the business activity 
that you pursue requires you to provide confidential or 
proprietary information or trade secrets to another party, 
you may want to protect its confidential nature through 
the use of a non-disclosure or confidentiality agreement . 
Through such an agreement, you can obtain a legal 
commitment from the party to whom you disclose the 
information to keep it secret . Such an agreement can 
outline many facets of the agreement, including the infor-
mation to be protected, the purposes for which it can be 
used, who is allowed to have access to the information, 
the measures to be taken to protect the information, and 
the legal obligation to keep the information confidential . 
Non-disclosure agreements are routinely used when two 
business entities are considering entering into a business 
transaction together . Before a decision can be made, one 
party may need to understand the details of a manufac-
turing process or a specific product of the other that may 
constitute valuable trade secrets . Thus, confidentiality is 
essential . Such agreements are sometimes unilateral in 
nature (protecting just one party), while others are mutual 
(protecting confidential information of both parties) .
Patents.
Patent protection prevents others from copying, 
producing or selling your product without your permis-
sion . By federal law, any person who “invents or discovers 
any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or 
composition of matter, or any new and useful improve-
ment thereof, may obtain a patent .” You can obtain 
a patent to protect your invention for a period of 20 
years by filing an application with the U .S . Patent and 
Trademark Office, 
www .uspto .gov
.
Technically, a patent 
gives you the right to exclude others from making, using, 
offering for sale, or selling your product in the United 
States, or importing the product into the United States . 
The ‘right to exclude’ sets the stage for your own, 
exclusive manufacturing of your product or, if you so 
choose, to give one party or multiple parties permis-
sion to make, use or sell your product through licensing 
agreements or joint venture arrangements . 
Trademarks and Service Marks.
While pursuing protec-
tion for your product, you may also want to protect a 
logo, a business slogan or a brand name that you intend 
to use . A trademark or service mark includes any word, 
name, symbol, or design, or any combination thereof, 
used or intended for use in commerce to identify and 
distinguish the goods or services of one provider or seller 
from goods or services provided or sold by others, and to 
indicate the source of the goods or services . In short, a 
trademark or service mark is a brand name .
You can establish rights in a mark simply by using the 
mark legitimately . However, owning a Federal trademark 
registration provides greater legal protection to your 
mark . Similar to patent protection, you can register your 
trademark or service mark by filing an application with 
the U .S . Patent and Trademark Office, 
www .uspto .gov
.

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– 6 –
Choosing your production process 
As you begin to consider your options for manufacturing 
your new product, you might be surprised by the various 
choices you can make . Of course, if you are ready, willing 
and able to jump in with both feet, you can start and run 
all of your own production processes . But you also have 
the option of outsourcing either some or all of the steps 
of production .
As an alternative to beginning a manufacturing operation 
from scratch, you may want to work with other people 
or businesses that can perform some of the operations 
in the process . Perhaps you want to have various parts 
made for you by other parties while retaining for yourself 
the responsibility for assembly of the final product . Or 
perhaps you want to make parts that can be assembled 
by someone else .
You will want to structure your methods of production in 
a way that makes sense for your product . You can choose 
between three basic methods of end-to-end production — 
the job method, the batch method and the flow method . 
Or you can segment the processes among various parties 
or enterprises in a flexible manufacturing network .
End-To-End Production.
Here are your options:
• 
Job production
calls for one person, or a few persons 
working together, to perform the entire production 
process . For example, teddy bear production can be 
done by giving one worker all the necessary raw materials 
and tools to make a teddy bear from start to finish . 
• 
Batch production
, on the other hand, allows for more 
specialization, and there may be different workers 
doing different tasks as batches of parts or pieces are 
completed . With our teddy bear example, one person 
may cut the cloth, another may sew, another may stuff 
the bear, and another may attach the eyes and nose . This 
might be done in batches so that bears can be produced 
in different colors and designs .
• 
Flow production
can be visualized by thinking of your 
typical assembly-line system . The product is built up 
through many segregated stages, and after each stage 
it is passed directly to the next stage where it is built up 
again . It is similar to batch production, except that it is 
typically broken down into smaller, simpler tasks that are 
performed by different workers one right after the other 
(or performed by machines along an assembly line) . 
Henry Ford introduced this style of production to the 
automobile industry .
• 
Manufacturing Process Management
(MPM) is a collec-
tion of technologies and methods used to define how 
products are to be manufactured . A cornerstone of MPM 
is the central repository for the integration of all these 
tools and activities, which aids in the exploration of alter-
native production line scenarios . This can make assembly 
lines more efficient with the aim of reduced lead-time to 
product launch, shorter production times and reduced 
work-in-progress inventories, as well as allowing rapid 
response to product changes .
Flexible Manufacturing Networks.
Doing it all on your 
own isn’t always the best option . Collaboration with other 
companies can often achieve better economic results 
than going it alone . Flexible manufacturing networks 
allow businesses to develop joint solutions for shared 
challenges/opportunities . Networking firms can combine 
resources to gain economies of scale; share knowledge, 
technologies and resources; and enter markets beyond 
their individual capability . 
Large firms often outsource some component fabrica-
tion and sub-assemblies to improve their flexibility in 
meeting customer requirements . Consequently, they 
look for smaller, specialized producers to supply their