The Definition, Importance of Intellectual Property and IP Laws UK

Post By Admin On 12, Jun

The main purpose of IP is to encourage those who are the creators of intellectual goods. With the help of IP law, it is also possible for people to get information about these intellectual goods.

Intellectual property is abbreviated as IP. It is a type of property with intangible creations relevant to the human intellect. Two types of laws are related to intellectual property:

• Industrial Property Rights
• Copyright

This is the best way to give economic incentives to people as they can earn more and more profit with the help of their intellectual creations. These economic incentives are helpful for the economic and technological progress of a country. It is more difficult for us to handle intellectual property than traditional property because people face lots of difficulties to stop replicating intellectual property.

After replicating it, most people try to sell it at lower prices. Therefore, we can say that investments in this field may suffer from lots of problems and the people cannot get appreciation.

Intellectual Property Rights Definition

The process of assigning property rights to people with the help of trademarks, copyright and patents are known as intellectual property rights. With the help of these rights, the creator can use a specific term for his business for a specific period of time.

To get rid of duplication and imitation, the monopoly power is conferred. Intellectual property laws are helpful for people to provide them with ownership of literary and artistic work. For this reason, they protect the literary work by copyright, inventions by patents and distinguish and enterprise of the goods by trademarks.

Types of Intellectual Property

The main aim of intellectual property is to protect inventions, literary and all kinds of artistic works. There are four types of intellectual property:

• Patents
• Trademark
• Copyright
• Trade Secretes

These four types of intellectual property are explained below:

Patents

With the help of a patent, one can easily get a title to prevent his inventions from exposition. The patent doesn’t allow other people to prepare or sell this particular invention. One can get this kind of monopoly for a specific field and in a specific country.

Moreover, the period of this monopoly is also specific. The maximum period of time that is granted for this monopoly is 20 years. This deal is given between the inventor and the society. The patent is helpful for the inventor because it doesn’t allow competitors and other people to make copies of his invention. On the other hand, society can get help from the patent through real innovations.

To apply for the patent, the inventor should fulfil these requirements:

1. The invention of a person should have a patentable matter. In European countries, a set of EPC (European Patent Convention) rules is used to claim intellectual property. According to these rules, all the scientific theories, discoveries, aesthetic creations, computer programs, playing games and mathematical methods come into EPC rules.
2. The invention of a person should be novel. This means that the idea or the product of a person should be unique and different from other ideas and products.
3. There includes an inventive step in this invention. It means that a person who has average knowledge of your field will not be able to understand your invention easily.
4. The invention of a person should either be susceptible or an industrial application. In other words, the invention of a person should not be purely theoretical.

Trademark

A trademark is a sign which distinguishes the products or services of a company or an organisation from the products or services of other competitive companies and organisations. A trademark can be in the form of distinctive words or some other kinds of marks.

The main aim of a trademark is to set the mindset of a customer that these particular products or services belong to a particular company.

Different companies use different trademarks for the promotion and reorganisation of the products or services of their companies. The most famous form of the trademark is in the form of the logo of a company. Some other trademarks of the companies are personal names, the shape of the products and letters etc.

Some essential requirements to define a new trademark are given below:

1. It must be distinguished from the trademarks of other companies.
2. A trademark should not be deceptive and it should not deceive the public concern of a particular geographical area.
3. A trademark can’t be in the form of a description of a product or service of a company.
4. A trademark should follow all the laws relevant to the trademark.
5. It should also be prepared by considering public policy and morality.

Copyright

A legal term which protects the original literary, musical and artistic work of the creators is known as copyright. Some essential forms of copyrighted things are:

• Thesis
• Books
• Research Papers
• Computer Software
• Sound Recordings
• TV Programs and films etc.

There are two main components of the copyright. First is known as moral rights and these moral rights provide ownership to the author. The second is known as economic rights and with the help of economic rights, a person makes and issues the copies of his products to others.

Copyright is not a monopoly because two people can prepare the same work and they can get individual copyright claims for their own works. The term copyright has been developed over the last fifty years.

The copyright also provides protection to the work of a person for a limited period of time. The creators of such work can easily get the copyright rules from the creation of their work and there is no need to fulfil a formal registration process for the protection of their work.

Trade Secrets

A secret formula or any kind of other information that provides a competitive advantage to a company over the other is known as a trade secret. Some essential forms of trade secrets are:

• Soda Formulas
• Lists of the Customers
• Results of the Surveys
• Computer Algorithm, etc.

The protection of this kind of intellectual property is different from the protection of other kinds of intellectual property because you can only protect your trade secrets only if you don’t disclose the information or formulas of your products.

Lots of security practices are made by businessmen to protect their products. While protecting your trade secrets, you just need to take an overview of your competitors and try to prepare such policies that are helpful for you to protect your secrets from your competitors.

No doubt, to protect your intellectual property, there requires a huge amount of time and money. Therefore, before taking some essential measures to protect your trade secrets, you should get an idea of whether your trade secrets are worthy of protection or not.

Intellectual Property Law

The area of the law which provides legal rights to the work of the creators and inventors is known as intellectual property law. The main aim of this law is to provide control over the creations of the inventors.

With the help of intellectual property law, one can easily get an idea of who can invent new things to earn more and more profit.

According to the lawmakers, it is fair for the creators to generate revenue from their creative work. In intellectual property law, there include two types of work. The first is known as scientific work and the second is known as creative work. Due to the different types of intellectual work, there are four different forms of intellectual property laws to protect the work of the creators and inventors.

1. First is known as copyright law which provides ownership to a person for his creative work.
2. The second is known as patent law which provides ownership to a person for his creation.
3. The third is known as trademark law which protects the identity of the products or services of a company.
4. Fourth is known as trade secret law which provides a complete plan to a company to protect its formulas and essential information.

Tips to Protect Intellectual Property

After inventing or creating something new, the next step is to tell the world about your invention or creation. Before bringing your invention or creation before the world, you should try to find the best ways to protect your invention or creation.

Some essential tips to protect your invention or creation are given below;

• There is no need to file patents before launching your product or service because if you are filing patents, it means that you are providing a full recipe to the world.
• You should be lean and fast especially when you are going to launch your invention in the tech sector. Its reason is that if you are slow enough, it means that you are providing a chance to your competitors to create the same inventions and get success by remaining lean and fast.
• If you are going to invent a product by working in a team, you should make sure that there is no need to provide complete detail about your product to all the members of your team.
• In the field of technology, you should get benefits from open-source IT technology and try to tap into the broad community of developers and inventors.
• There is no need to get joint ownership in the field of technology because it can create lots of problems relating to the protection of intellectual property.
• For the protection of your trademarks, it is essential thing for you to get exact-match domains.

Intellectual Property Rights Act Of the UK

The intellectual property rights act of the UK was prepared in May 2014 and it has come into force on 1^st October 2014.

The main points of this law are explained below:

• For objective evidence, the IP system can be driven as far as possible.
• For the purpose of cross-border licensing, the UK will establish a Digital Copyright Exchange.
• For the work of the orphans, there will make legislation.
• IPO (Intellectual Property Office) will easily access the relationship between the rights of the designs and their innovations.
• An act is made for persons who are using unregistered private designs.
• According to the new act, people are free to reuse unregistered designs to create their own content.
• A design opinion service is also introduced to avoid infringing of the copyright.
• For patent work sharing, they have also made some national and regional patent offices.

Importance of Intellectual Property Rights

Nowadays, we can see that intellectual property rights laws are accepted all around the world. Some essential reasons for the acceptance of intellectual property rights all around the world are given below;

• As an individual creator, it is a hard task for you to protect your intellectual property. Intellectual property rights law is helpful for individuals to protect their creations.
• This law is also providing lots of reorganizations not only to the creators but also to the inventors.
• For intellectual property, this law is also ensuring the material reward. With the help of this material reward, one can get feelings of ownership.
• This law is also ensuring that users can easily get unique and original products without copyright issues.
• If there is no intellectual property law, we can’t see any kind of growth and advancement in the field of technology. Therefore, for the growth, success and protection in the field of technology, it is necessary for us to ensure intellectual property law.
• For the growth of business in the field of technology, it is also necessary for us to ensure intellectual property law.