What is intellectual property?
Intellectual property (IP) refers to creations of the mind, such as inventions; literary and artistic works; designs; and symbols, names and images used in commerce.
Intellectual property is something unique that you physically create (an idea alone is not intellectual property) and primarily encompasses copyrights, patents and trademarks.
Owning intellectual property
You own intellectual property if you:
- created it (and it meets the requirements for copyright, a patent or a design)
- bought intellectual property rights from the creator or a previous owner
- have a brand that could be a trade mark, for example, a well-known product name
Intellectual property can:
- have more than one owner
- belong to people or businesses
- be sold or transferred
Generally, you won’t own the intellectual property for something you created as part of your work while you were employed by someone else.
Protecting your intellectual property
Think of intellectual property as an asset:
- Use it to create and sell your own products and/or services
- Protect against counterfeiting
- Restrict activities of competitors
- Licence it to someone else and receive loyalties as a form of income
- Sell it
Automatic protection
|
Type of protection |
Examples of intellectual property |
|
Writing and literary works, art, photography, films, TV, music, web content, sound recordings |
|
|
Shapes of objects |
Protection you have to apply for
|
Type of protection |
Examples of intellectual property |
Time to allow for application |
|
Product names, logos, jingles |
4 months |
|
|
Appearance of a product including, shape, packaging, patterns, colours, decoration |
1 month |
|
|
Inventions and products, eg machines and machine parts, tools, medicines |
Around 5 years |
- Perform an audit to ascertain what existing intellectual property you have
- Research to see what intellectual property your competitors have
- Align your intellectual property objectives with your overall business goals
- Keep informed – set up Google alerts, check Ebay & Amazon, PPC advertising
- Utilise watching services
- Further information can be obtained from the government, head over to https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-patlib-network/uk-patlib-contact-information to see what local intellectual property clinics are available
- Enlist the services of a professional patent or trademark attorney, who should be registered with CITMA (https://www.citma.org.uk/members/) or CIPA (http://www.cipa.org.uk/)
