Intellectual Property

1. Protection

If your business involves any form of intellectual property, you need to review whether any of it is, or should be, protected.

1.1 There are four main kinds of intellectual property which can be protected.

• Inventions, which you may be able to patent (see 2 and 3).
• Designs, which can be protected by design right or by design registration (see 4).
• Things like publications and recordings, which can be protected by copyright (see 5).
• A name or symbol for your product or service, which can be protected with trade mark registration (see 6).

1.2 If the intellectual property is already protected by someone else, you will not be able to protect it.

• They will be able to take legal action against you if you infringe their rights.

1.3 The rights for new intellectual property generally belong to whoever created it.

• Rights can be transferred to someone else (eg by selling them).
• Intellectual property created in the course of a job generally belongs to the employer.

1.4 If you have the rights to any intellectual property, you must decide whether it is worth protecting.

• There is no point in paying to patent an invention, for example, unless it is commercially viable.
• Obtaining legal protection can be expensive and time-consuming. Some limited forms of protection are automatic and free (eg copyright).
• You must be prepared to enforce your rights, possibly risking expensive litigation (see Litigation and insurance). The intellectual property rights of small businesses and individuals are especially likely to be ignored. You will have to discover and prove the infringement.