Intellectual Property (IP)

Intellectual Property

Intellectual Property is often referred to as IP. There are four main types of IP rights which you can use to protect your work and creations, these are as follows:

1.      Patents

2.      Trade Marks

3.      Designs

4.      Copyright

A Patent protects designs based around how things actually work. For example what chemicals are put into a fizzy drink to create the flavour we like.

A Trade Mark protects a slogan or logo which is unique to a brand/goods/services.

A Design protects the appearance of a product, regardless of how it was made the design is protected. For example the shape of the aeroplane.

Copyright is an automatic right which applies when the work is fixed, that is written or recorded in some way.

Patents

‘A patent protects new inventions and covers how things work, what they do, how they do it, what they are made of and how they are made.

Your invention must:

·        be new

·        have an inventive step that is not obvious to someone with knowledge and experience in the subject

·        be capable of being made or used in some kind of industry

Not be:

·        a scientific or mathematical discovery, theory or method

·        a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work

·        a way of performing a mental act, playing a game or doing business

·        the presentation of information, or some computer programs

·        an animal or plant variety

·        a method of medical treatment or diagnosis

·        Against public policy or morality.

The patent also allows you to:

·        sell the invention and all the intellectual property (IP) rights

·        license the invention to someone else but retain all the IP rights

·        discuss the invention with others in order to set up a business based around the invention.

Trade Marks:

A trade mark is a sign which can distinguish your goods and services from those of your competitors (you may refer to your trade mark as your "brand"). It can be for example words, logos or a combination of both. The only way to register your trade mark is to apply to us - The Intellectual Property Office.

Trade marks are acceptable if they are:

·        distinctive for the goods and services you provide. In other words they can be recognised as signs that differentiates your goods or service as different from someone else's.

Designs:

A Registered Design is a legal right which protects the overall visual appearance of a product or a part of a product in the country or countries you register it.

For its registration to be valid, a design must:

·        be new

·        have individual character.

Copyright:

Copyright can protect:

·        literary works, including novels, instruction manuals, computer programs, song lyrics, newspaper articles and some types of database

·        dramatic works, including dance or mime

·        musical works

·        artistic works, including paintings, engravings, photographs, sculptures, collages, architecture, technical drawings, diagrams, maps and logos

·        layouts or typographical arrangements used to publish a work, for a book for instance

·        recordings of a work, including sound and film

·        broadcasts of a work

Copyright applies to any medium. This means that you must not reproduce copyright protected work in another medium without permission. This includes, publishing photographs on the internet, making a sound recording of a book, a painting of a photograph and so on.

A copyright protected work can have more than one copyright, or another intellectual property (IP) right, connected to it.  For example, an album of music can have separate copyrights for individual songs, sound recordings, artwork, and so on.  Whilst copyright can protect the artwork of your logo, you could also register the logo as a trade mark.’

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/ - Access 13/02/14

 

People tend to often feel that just because an image or piece of work has copyright attached they are not allowed to use. This is not technically true. There are many ways around copyright. The main way is to gain permission to use the copyright image. This can be done in two ways, one is to gain a license, these often cost money however can be worth it in given circumstances. Another way is to contact the owner directly. You can explain your circumstances and exactly what you wish to do and seek their permission. Obviously there is no grantee that they will allow you the use of their image/work however it is a quick and easy option. What many people don’t realise is that under certain circumstances you can use copyrighted images/piece of work.  The below list show all the circumstances where you can use a copyrighted item:

1.      Non-commercial research and private study

2.      Criticism, review and reporting current events

3.      Teaching in educational establishments

4.      Helping visually impaired people

5.      Time shifting

In most of these cases it is still vital that you give sufficient levels of acknowledgement however this is normally standard with using any copyrighted material.

Although Creative Commons is not necessarily a way around copyrighted material it is a way of sourcing images which don’t have any copyright to worry about.  Creative Commons are a non profit making services which simply aim to increase the amount of creative sources available freely. They still use copyright licenses however these are adapted to Creative Commons licenses which are not as strict. The author of a piece of material can apply for a Creative Commons license and can communicate which rights they wish to reserve. The main aim of Creative Commons is to allow re distribution of images freely but still protecting the author’s wishes.

There are six licenses related to creative commons, they are as follows:

1.      Attribution (CC BY)

2.      Attribution Share Alike (CC BY-SA)

3.      Attribution No Derivatives (CC BY-ND)

4.      Attribution Non-Commercial (CC BY-NC)

5.      Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike (CC BY-NC-SA)

6.      Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND)

 

When creating my own work within this assignment it seems clear that IP rights will be present throughout due to the volume of images I will be using. Although I am only creating this for educational purposes and hence copyright doesn’t apply I should be creating this with the impression that it is for distribution throughout the industry and hence then copyright would play a major part. The simplest way to get around copyright would be to use images which have Creative Commons rights, these are not as strict and hence easier to get around. The other option would be to gain a license from the owner however it is likely that more than one image would be needed and this could become costly however within the industry this would probably only be a small cost.