The entrepreneurial activity that I have been interested in exploring for some time is starting a company specialized in the production of customized hiking equipment, in particular hiking backpacks . Developing such a company would involve a number of legal issues that would need to be addressed from both a business and product perspective. In this essay I will explore the various legal hurdles that will need to be addressed when creating my new business and product. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay When starting a new business, there is always the concern about what types of government regulation might exist in your particular industry. With our business structure, we do not expect to encounter extensive government regulations beyond the normal business formation processes. For example, we plan to look for a local business license in the city of Chicago. This is required for every business to operate within a municipality. We will also acquire a tax identification number from the federal government. This number is unique to each business and is essentially necessary to file taxes correctly. Finally, we will form the company as a limited liability company (LLC) in order to protect my personal assets from any future creditors. When opening a retail business focused on a single product, you need to look for a number of legal protections to protect your company and your product, but most importantly, brand protection. A trademark is a form of federal legal protection that applies to a company or product name or logo (Hinrish, Peters, 2014). For the company I am trying to start I will be looking for a trademark for my company name, my product name, as well as the logo that will be developed for my company. This legal protection will allow me to protect my brand and all names associated with it from use by imitators. Since I will be offering a unique product that will be designed by my company, I will also need to apply for a patent on this design. A patent will protect my product from duplication by potential imitators for a period of 17 years (trademark, patent or copyright?). Patent protection for my company would be critical to ensure that the company is not only able to establish our product in a fairly crowded backpack market, but will also allow us to protect our product for a long time to ensure that prosperous in the market. Due to the fact that there are so many variations of backpacks already on the market, our design will have to be truly unique in design for the government to issue a patent for our design. When developing a new product there is always a concern about the safety of the product and with that any liability that may arise from the creation of such a product. Even though we are developing a product that could be considered an everyday item, I don't think there is much liability that will come from using our product. Since we are developing a backpack that will be designed specifically for hiking, and therefore will be used in many potentially extreme environments, it will be important that we are very clear in both our marketing and our product packaging about what the limitations of our product are I am. For example, when we design the product we intend to make it waterproof, but by using that term in our advertising and promotions we will need to be clear with the consumer about the limitations on the packaging to ensure that we are not required to.