Website Audits identify protectable intellectual property rights in your website content and also serve to identify content that may infringe another's intellectual property. Both aspects of the audit are equally important.

A website audit invokes all aspects of intellectual property protection. Elements of the website may qualify for patent protection as business methods or be subject to software patent protection. Trademark, copyright and trade secret issues may be raised with respect to these same or similar elements.

Absent a website audit, you may find yourself running afoul of evolving law governing the use of links to other sites, frames to "pull" information from other sites, or technology to "push" information from your own website. Information hosting through chat services or forums may involve both "freedom of speech" and intellectual property issues. Publication of protected information or acting as a conduit or host may give rise to liability under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The very public nature of the Internet only increases the likelihood that infringement of another's intellectual property rights, intentional or otherwise, will be discovered and acted upon.

A website audit can be as cursory or as complete as your business needs demand. In some instances, just identifying the proper and improper use of trademarks or copyright in a website may pay for itself in preserving your own intellectual property rights or preventing expensive litigation from the infringement of another's rights. In other instances, you may want to know when and how you can publish information acquired from other websites, how to avoid being sued for defamation arising out of a highly opinionated or controversial website and when its fair to use another's trademarks on your own site for comparative or editorial purposes. In all these instances, identifying intellectual property issues before potential litigation arises more than offsets the reasonable cost of the investigation.