A trade mark protects any sign or symbol that allows your customers to tell you apart from your competitors. You can register a name, numerals, logo, slogan, designs, letters, domain name, shape, smell or sound.
A trade mark must be:
If your trade mark meets these requirements, you may want to consider applying for a registered trade mark. For further information on registering a trade mark, please visit Intellectual Property Office.
Your trade mark does not have to be registered, but an unregistered mark can only be protected by relying on the common law of passing off or (in some cases) copyright infringement. A registered trade mark is preferable as it gives you a statutory monopoly to use that mark (e.g. in the UK if a UK mark) for the goods and services under which it is registered. It is much easier to pursue infringers under registered trade mark infringement as opposed to Passing off.
If you have a registered trade mark, you must renew it every 10 years to keep it in force.
Copyright protects original artistic, literary, dramatic or musical works. You should only copy or use a copyrighted work with the copyright owner's permission.
You can copyright:
Copyright does not protect ideas for a work. However, when an idea is fixed in a tangible form, for example in writing, copyright automatically protects it. This means that you do not have to apply for copyright.
A copyright protected work can have more than one copyright, or another intellectual property 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.
In contrast to the economic rights under copyright, moral rights are concerned with protecting the artistic integrity and reputation of authors.
Moral rights enable the authors of copyright, literary, dramatic, musical, artistic works and a director of a film, certain rights and certain privileges which are described below:
The author or director has to indicate their wish to exercise the right to be identified by giving notice to this effect (which generally has to be in writing and signed) to those seeking to use or exploit the work or film. The giving of notice in this way is known as asserting the right to be identified.
The author or director can waive their moral rights (This may, for example, be required by a prospective purchaser of the copyright as a condition of the purchase). This must be done in writing and be signed by the person giving up the rights. The waiver can be based on conditions to suit the owner of the moral rights and if the person does not want to waive them completely, they do not need to. In the event that the person owning the moral rights wishes to waive his or her rights, such a waiver may be general or specific (i.e. it may relate to a specific work only or to all works in general), may relate to existing or future works, and may be on a conditional or unconditional basis. The waiver may also be subject to revocation, so that a waiver, once given, need not continue indefinitely. This gives an author or director some flexibility. They can change their mind in response to changing circumstances or opportunities.
If such a waiver is made in favour of the owner or prospective owner of the copyright to the works to which it relates, it shall be presumed to extend to anyone who is granted rights in the copyright by the prospective owner (for example, under a licence) or anyone acquiring or inheriting the copyright from the prospective owner, unless the contrary intention is expressed. It should be noted that under Section 94 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, moral rights cannot be assigned. The owner of moral rights can, however, on their death, transfer those rights to another person by way of a will.
The duration of the right to be identified, and the right to object to derogatory treatment and the right to keep certain photographs and films private, subsists as long as the copyright subsists in the work, which is generally the life of the author plus 70 years. However, the right not to be falsely attributed to work lasts only for the life of the author plus 20 years.
It is worth noting that there are certain exceptions which need to be considered when contemplating whether moral rights apply to a particular piece of work e.g.
Design protection covers the outward appearance of your product, including decoration, lines, contours, colours, shape, texture and materials. If you have a new shape or pattern for a product, you may be able to protect it as a design.
These are the essential features of registered designs:
Design right protects the appearance of a purely functional product.
It's a right to prevent copying that doesn't require registration and is valid for the lesser of either 10 years from the first marketing of articles made to the design, or 15 years from the creation of the relevant design document, subject to licences of right in the last 5 years of the term.
To be protected by design right, a design must:
1. comprise the shape or configuration (whether internal or external) of the whole or part of an article;
2. be original, which means that it must not be commonplace in a 'qualifying country';
3. be recorded in a design document or be the subject of an article made to the design; and
4. qualify for design right protection by reference to the designer or the person by whom the designer was employed, or the person by whom and country in which articles made to the design were first marketed.
To be protected by design right, a design must not: