Anything original that someone has created is Intellectual Property. It could be anything from a basic picture to a Design, Brand name or even a song. If an individual creates intellectual property then it is protected by the law. If something is your intellectual property, you have the exclusive right to use, alter and profit from it and you also have the right to license your work to others.
However the one exception is that if you are an employee, the work and designs that you create automatically are your employers intellectual property which falls under the ownership category “Work For Hire”.
Copyright is automatically given when you create content which is covered under it. However the key is to show iteration and development of your working using time stamps to prove the work is really yours so that if anyone was to ever argue you stole their ideas or work, you have the time stamped proof it is your own. Generally after 70 years of an authors death, content can be fought out of copyright as long as it has not been inherited by a member of their family and that contents copyright belongs to a new owner. There is also multiple exceptions under fair use such as scholarly works, new reporting, criticism or parody.
A patent protections innovations, inventions and new technical solutions to existing difficulties. It gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention and protects that invention from being commercially made, used, distributed, imported or sold by others without the patent owner's consent. The process to get a patent for your product can take a while to get however it is good to have to stop competition from taking your ideas. When the Apple iPhone first came out, Apple got a patent for the “Slide to Unlock” to prevent their competitors such as Samsung using it on their devices.
A trademark consists of a recognisable sign, design or expression that identifies products or services and sets them apart from others. The trademark owner can be an individual, business or any legal entity. All logos or brands automatically become trademarked however if they do not get registered, then you might not be able to legally expand the business any further.
The same meaning as a regular trademark although a registered trademark has the name or symbol of a product or company, shown by a letter R is a circle. This means it is officially recorded and cannot legally be used by another producer or company. By registering your trademark you are providing yourself with extra legal cover and preventing others from using your product. Trademarks fall under classes with some covering multiple classes, with class 1-34 being Goods and 34-45 being services. This means that two companies could have the same name but be in two different areas of the economy and they would both be allowed however bigger companies such as EasyJet, trademark themselves in all classes to prevent this.
We can use Gov.uk to pay for a patent or check for your own patent which allows others to potentially challenge your request, search for trademarks and explore the same name in different classes.
A non-disclosure agreement (NDA) is a legally binding contract that establishes a confidential relationship. The party or parties signing the agreement agree that sensitive information they may obtain will not be disclosed to other people therefore protecting any type of confidential, proprietary information or trade secrets that aren't in the public domain. Examples of this is insider information on Stock Levels, if you were to leak this and cause people to withdraw their shares based on insider information, you would be sent to prison.
Unilateral NDA
Allows you to limit how another party can use or share your company's confidential information. This information can be anything you want the other party to keep secret such as business plans, trade secrets, designs and unpatented inventions.
Mutual NDA
A mutual confidentiality agreement - where both parties will be disclosing confidential information to each other for general commercial purposes.
<aside> 💭 Reflection
This was a really helpful lecture which I will be able to apply in the future if I went on to launch my own company or brand and the legal proceedings behind it. It especially helped me realise why we show our process throughout our projects in Uni as in the real world this would be our proof of originality and allow us to fight our side if someone was to accuse us of copyright. It was also really useful to learn about what a NDA is as I had heard the term but never fully understand what it really meant and what was involved in one.
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