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Intellectual property is a term used to describe the outcomes of creative and innovative endeavours.
It is described as property because it can be owned, sold, transferred or given away. Intellectual Property includes property such as patents, trade marks, copyrights and designs and confidential information.
Intellectual Property is important to your business as it will often include those things which distinguish your business from other businesses.
If you want to franchise your business or licence your business it is essential that you protect your Intellectual Property.
Your Business Name and Logo
Your Documents and Software
Trade Secrets and Confidential Information
Patents
Difference between Copyright and Trademark
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⚜️Your name and logo (including slogans, pictures, colour schemes and other things which identify you) are your Intellectual Property and are obviously important. Your ability to prevent others from trading off your name and logo rely on your ability to protect them.
There are 2 ways that you can protect your name and logo.
Registration of a company name, a business name or a domain name does not give you any protection for the registered name. Registration of a trade mark is the best way of protecting your name/logo.
📜Your original documents and software are also your Intellectual Property. This includes any original letters, e-mails, articles, manuals timetables, databases and computer programs as well as any original videos.
Except in certain circumstances, copyright protects this Intellectual Property.
Copyright does not need to be registered to protect you.
Copyright only protects the actual document, video, computer program etc. It does not protect ideas, information or concepts. An idea, concept or information can still be copied unless it is protected in some other way.
💡 Your Intellectual Property also includes trade secrets and confidential information.
You cannot register this Intellectual Property and unfortunately you can only protect this Intellectual Property by keeping it secret. The most common way to do this is by entering into a confidentiality agreement with people who have access to the information.
In addition it is desirable that people who have access to your trade secrets and confidential information, enter into an agreement not to compete with you or to work with anyone that competes with you.
Confidentiality agreements and non compete agreements are not always enforceable.
Consequently, considerable thought should be given to drafting these agreements to ensure that they are both comprehensive and enforceable.
[Confidentiality Agreements - A Comprehensive Guide]
[Restraint of Trade Agreements]
⚙️A patent is an enforceable right to commercially exploit an invention for the life of a patent.
If there are any devices, substances, methods or processes which are unique to you and important to your business then you should, if possible, register these as a patent.
You will then have the exclusive right to use and licence others to use the patented device, substance, method or process.
™️©️We have looked at the different types of Intellectual Property and how it can be protected.
In the table below we have set out the difference between copyright and a trademark.
| Type of Intellectual Property | Definition | Protection | Scope |
| Copyright | Copyright is a form of Intellectual Property that grants exclusive rights to creators of original works, as well as software and other intellectual creations. | Copyright protects the expressions of ideas once they are in a tangible medium (eg written down, recorded or saved digitally). Copyright is not registered. | Copyright covers the rights to reproduce, distribute, perform, display and create derivative works from the original work. |
| Trademark | A trademark is a word or a symbol or design, used to distinguish goods and services. | A trademark is registered, and protects the use of the work, symbol or design in the place that the trademark is registered. | A registered trademark protects the registered owner of the trademark from unauthorised use of the trademark by other people (in the class in which the trademark is registered). |
Disclaimer
The information in this article is general in nature and is not intended to address the circumstances of any person or other entity. Although we do our best to provide timely and accurate information, we do not guarantee that the information in this article is accurate or that it will continue to be accurate in the future.
A key aspect of the Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Act 2023 is the criminalisation of ‘wage theft’....
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