Intellectual Property Notes PDF

Notes on IP law: An Overview. Legal English What is Intellectual Property? Intellectual Property (IP) refers to the legal rights granted to individuals or organizations for their creative and innovative works, products, processes and more. It encompasses a wide range of intangible assets, including...

Notes on IP law: An Overview. Legal English What is Intellectual Property? Intellectual Property (IP) refers to the legal rights granted to individuals or organizations for their creative and innovative works, products, processes and more. It encompasses a wide range of intangible assets, including inventions, literary and artistic works, symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce, which enable people to earn recognition or financial benefit from what they invent or create. The purpose of IP law is to provide creators with exclusive rights to their creations, incentivise innovation, and foster economic growth. Trademarks Trademarks are distinctive signs that distinguish the goods or services of one business from those of others. Trademarks date back to ancient times when artisans used to put their signature on their products. They can include names, logos, slogans, or even specific product packaging. Through continuous usage of a brand, unregistered rights can be established, granting the owner the ability to take legal action against third parties who use an identical or substantially similar brand. Nonetheless, relying exclusively on unregistered rights comes with drawbacks, including the uncertainty surrounding their protection and the requirement of providing substantial evidence to support the claims. Registering a trademark grants the owner exclusive rights to use and protect that mark within the specified class of goods or services. A trademark is intended to prevent confusion in the marketplace. A trademark can be a name, word, slogan, design, symbol or other unique device that identifies a product or organisation. It is quite literally ‘a mark under which you trade’. Trademark can be represented by the 'R in a circle' ® denoting a registered trademark, or the letters 'TM'. The USA additionally has a separate classification for services using the letters 'SM' to denote a 'service mark'. Service marks have the same legal protection as trademarks. - Unregistered trademarks Common law provides protection against what is called ‘passing off’. This is where someone else uses the mark in the same or similar market in a way that could confuse customers that were looking for your business (such as an unscrupulous trader attempting to poach trade). To successfully prove passing off you should be able to demonstrate that: The name is yours. e.g. some proof of ownership and/or creation (such as a copyright registration) that predates the offence. Customers associate the name with you. You need to show you have been trading under that name and have historical customers that have bought from you under that name. You have been harmed by the other person’s use of the name. e.g. loss of revenue. - Trademark registration To add weight to a claim, trademarks can also be registered at a national or territory level with an appointed government body. Trademark applications typically take anywhere between 6 and 18 months to be processed. Registering in countries such as the US, the UK, Japan, etc will protect your mark in that country only, but within the European Union, there now exists a Community Trade Mark (CTM) which covers the mark in all EU countries. There is also the Madrid System that provides a facility to submit trademarks applications to many countries at the same time. Registered trademarks may be identified by the ‘®’ symbol. (it is illegal to use the ® symbol or state that the trademark is registered until the trademark has in fact been registered). In most countries, the national patent office will also administer trademark registrations. Patents Patents protect inventions that are not yet in the public domain and grant exclusive rights to the inventor for a limited period. To safeguard the potential for patenting, it is crucial to maintain the secrecy of inventions and only disclose them under the protection of a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). In the UK, the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) is responsible for granting patents. Patent protection is territorial, meaning that protection in one territory will not protect in another. To be eligible for a patent, an invention must be new, inventive, and have industrial applicability. Patent protection encourages innovation by rewarding inventors with a monopoly on their inventions for a specified period. Designs Design rights provide safeguarding for the overall or partial visual aspect, structure, arrangement, or embellishment of a product. They cover both registered and unregistered designs; however, the latter provide less protection and for a shorter duration of time. To qualify for protection, certain prerequisites must be met, such as the design being novel and presenting a distinct overall impression compared to any previous design already available in the market. Like all forms of IP, it is essential that the design remains undisclosed prior to seeking registration. Copyright Copyright protects original creative works, such as literature, music, films, artistic works, and software. It grants exclusive rights to the creator, including the rights to reproduce, distribute, and communicate the work to the public. In contrast to trademarks, designs, and patents, copyright cannot currently be registered in the UK. It is established automatically once specific criteria are fulfilled, which include the requirement for the work to be written or recorded. In the UK, copyright protection generally lasts for the life of the creator plus an additional 70 years. Copyright includes a wide range of works, such as: Literary works, such as poetry, song lyrics, manuscripts, manuals, computer programs/software, website code/scripts and text content, commercial documents, leaflets, newsletters and articles etc. Dramatic works, such as plays, dance choreography, etc. Musical works, in both sound recordings and score or notation. Artworks, such as photography, painting, digital art, sculptures, technical drawings/diagrams, maps, logos, etc. Typographical arrangement of published editions such as in magazines and newspapers. Sound recordings, which includes recordings of other copyright works, e.g. a performance of musical or literary work. Films, video footage, broadcasts and cable programmes. Copyright gives the author specific rights in relation to the work, prohibits unauthorised actions, and allows the author to take legal action against instances of infringement or plagiarism. Trade secrets Trade secrets are confidential information that provides businesses with a competitive advantage. They can include customer lists, manufacturing processes, formulas, or business strategies. Unlike other forms of IP, trade secrets do not require registration. Instead, in the UK these are protected under the common law of confidence by maintaining secrecy and implementing appropriate measures to prevent unauthorized access or disclosure. Please read the text carefully and indicate if the statements below are true (T) or false (F): 1. Trademarks are an exclusively new invention, as a result of the innovative protective efforts of the past 50 years. 2. Trade secrets to not necessarily require registration, but measures must be put into place to prevent any unauthorised disclosures. 3. An invention that is a novelty, inventive and has industrial applicability is the criteria to determine eligibility for a patent. 4. Trademarks can only be registered at a national level. 5. In the UK, the protection given by copyright usually lasts for the life of the creator, adding an additional 70 years on top of that. 6. This is where someone else uses the mark in the same or similar market in a way that could confuse customers that were looking for your business is called "passing off". 7. Patents are designed to grant exclusive rights to the inventor of a certain product for a limited period of time. 8. It is legal to use of the ® symbol on an unregistered trademark. 9. In cases such as designs or patents, it is irrelevant to keep them undisclosed prior to seeking registration. 10. An author who has seen their rights infringed or their work plagiarised can take specific legal action against those who caused the infringement.