Intellectual Property Management

Intellectual Property (IP) defines a novel or previously un-described activity. IP has an owner and can be bought, sold or licensed and should be adequately protected. The owner of the IP can control and be rewarded for its use and by doing so can encourage further innovation bringing benefit to all. The owner of IP has legal rights, although in some cases the owner has to register for those rights to subsist. The principal forms of those rights are patents, copyright, design, trademarks and know-how.

Patents are generally intended to cover products or processes that possess orcontain new functional or technical aspects. A patent gives the applicant a means ofpreventing others for a limited period from making, using or selling the invention.When a patent is granted, the invention becomes the property of the applicant.

Copyright covers literary and artistic works including computer software, films videos,and training documents and other written documents. Copyright comes into effectimmediately, as soon as something that can be protected is created and “fixed” insome way e.g. on paper, on film, via sound recording or as an electronic record onthe Internet. It is an unregistered right (unlike patents, registered designs or trademarks). Examples of works that copyright protects include original literary works e.g.novels, instruction manuals, computer programs, articles in newspapers, some typesof databases, but not names or titles.

A registered design is a monopoly right for the appearance of the whole or a part of aproduct resulting from the features of, in particular, the lines, contours, colours,shape, texture, materials of the product or its ornamentation.

Unregistered design rights cover engineering components and architectural drawings.

A Trademark is a badge of origin, used so that customers can recognise the productof a particular trader.

Know-how can be a procedure, process, a trade secret, knowledge of doing things, or a formula that cannot be patented but where some aspects are confidential.