Proud of your property? Confused about copyright? Troubled by trade marks? Perplexed about patents?
What makes intellectual property rights legally enforceable and how do your protect your company?
My I.P. lawyer friends will hopefully shower me with gifts, for mentioning first that you should seek their expert guidance.
A ‘quick start’ guide is:
An intellectual property might be a design, a logo, a text, a software programme, a model, a manufacturing process or similar creation.
The creator of the original work automatically holds the copyright, unless they agree to assign it to someone else.
An example of assignment would be a photo-shoot, commissioned by a company to promote its product range, when the photographer agrees that copyright in the pictures will belong to the client.
A trade mark is usually the brand name and logo of a company or product or service. The first trade mark ever registered in the UK was the red triangle logo of Bass Ales.
It also covers distinctive shapes associated with a brand, most famously the Coca Cola bottle.
A trade mark is not a trade mark, until it has been registered and accepted by the appropriate authority in each country or region.
The legal and registration requirements vary by country, as does the cost.
Including legal advice, in the UK allow up to £1,000 to register one trade mark in one class of goods.
There is a UK Trade Mark Registrar and also a European Union ‘harmonisation’ trade mark registration facility.
There are 42 ‘Classes Of Goods’ and it is necessary to register the trade mark in each class that is relevant to your I.P.
Class 9 is the most relevant for interactive games in the UK.
Once protected, an intellectual property, if used without the approval of the owner, will result in a challenge to the unauthorised user.
Piracy and its implications will be the subject of later articles.
More information about UK registration of trade marks, patents and designs is available online at www.patent.gov.uk
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