Copyright and Patent
Type of IP interest
Copyright
How the interest or right arises
An automatic right arising from statute.
Copyright arises as soon as an original work (literary, dramatic, musical, or artistic, as defined in the main UK statute: copyright designs and patterns act 1988 and is subsequent amendments) please created and embodied in a specific media for example on film, in a sound recording, in print, or as an electric record. Copyright also arises in the typography (the layout) of the published works.
What protection is available?
It is the expression in a particular tangible form which is protected rather than the ideal itself The copyright owner, normally the author, has exclusive rights, including the rights to make copies, to sell copies to the public, or to give a public performance of the work. The owner may license, usually in writing, the reproduction of the work.
Action required
The right cannot be registered.
It is possible to use a copyright symbol followed by the author’s name and date to indicate that it is intended that the word should have copyright protection, but it is not necessary to do this.
Patent
Type of IP Interest
Patent
How the interest or right arises
A patent is a territorial right given to the patent holder for a statutory period of years. It must be applied in each jurisdiction for which protection is required. In the UK, it may be granted by the UK Patent Office; in the USA it is issued by the Patent and Trademark office.
To be patentable, in in mansion must:
· be novel, that is, not made public anywhere before the filing date on which the application/description is submitted for patent.
· be capable of industrial application, that is, use or application in some kind of industry for example be a process, a material, or device.
· result from an inventive step. In the US, the test is to be non-obvious, that is, be something distinctive which could not have been produced by anyone with relatively good knowledge in the relevant area.
· not be an excluded thing ‘as such’ (Patents Act 1977) for example, it cannot be a discovery, a scientific theory, an aesthetic creation or, in the UK, a business method.
What protection is available?
The invention becomes a property interest vested in the inventor, which he/she can transfer by assignment, to transfer.
It confers the right to exclude others from making, using, or selling the invention. The import into the UK of a product with a UK patent will be in contravention of the patent.
Action Required
An application should be filed on the Patent Office can be removed, that is, removed from the Register in terms of the Patent Acts 1997, if, for example, a successful application is made to the Court in counter-claim on grounds such as:
· the invention is contrary to public policy or morality (for example, human cloning processes) or,
· the person granted the patent does not have entitlement to it.
Question
What is not patentable in a jurisdiction you are familiar with? How may copyright be enforced?
For information
