Have you worked out a solution to a niggling problem that plagues day-to-day life and can see a market opportunity? If so, you should be thinking about protecting your intellectual property (IP) rights.
Intellectual property rights are a raft of legal rights, including patents, designs, trade marks and copyright, which allow you to own the “intangible” things you, or your employees, create in a similar manner to owning physical property. These “intangible” creations can be technical or business know-how, ideas, inventions, new products, processes, brands, designs. On the one hand, IP rights give the legal owner the right to stop unauthorised exploitation from copycats, to safeguard and ultimately profit from the innovation and, on the other hand, allow the exploitation of the innovation through, for example, licensing.
Intellectual property rights play a crucial role in bringing together the ingenuity of entrepreneurs with the investment needed to develop and bring new ideas and products to market.
Patents are the lifeblood of our firm.
A patent is an agreement or bargain between the applicant and the government. The applicant is given a monopoly right to stop other people from doing certain infringing acts without permission, and in return the government will eventually publish the invention for everybody to use.
Very generally speaking, in order to obtain patent protection an invention must be new and inventive over anything that has been disclosed before. Patents cover technical advances, and can protect how things work, what they do, how they do it, what they are made of or how they are made.
It is important to remember that all inventions must be kept secret until a patent application has been filed. If you do have a patentable invention, it is vitally important that you do not disclose your invention to anyone prior to filing a patent application (other than under strictest confidence), since any public disclosure before filing would prevent you from obtaining a valid patent.
Our patent services include capturing, drafting, filing and prosecuting patent applications at the United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office, the European Patent Office, and in other territories. We also advise on infringement and validity issues, negotiating and settling patent disputes, patent watching and surveillance, and advising on licensing agreements and other transactions which deal with intellectual property.
Registered designs protect the aesthetic appearance of products.
Registered design protection applies to the overall appearance of the whole or part of a product that is visible in normal use. You cannot register a design whose appearance is solely dictated by its technical function (that is more akin to patent protection), and a registered design cannot protect those design features of the product that enable it to be connected to, or placed in, around or against, another article.
Most products will be subject to some design freedom, which at least in part could be protected. As registered designs are relatively cheap and easy to obtain, they can provide a good level of protection against third parties who make confusingly similar products.
Registered designs are often relied upon as a secondary layer of protection behind patents, but they can still form an important part of a client’s intellectual property strategy.
Our design services include filing and prosecuting registered design applications at the United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office, and in Europe through the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market in Alicante, and in other territories. We also advise on exploitation, licensing and enforcement of registered designs.
Copyright protects artistic works, such as original books, plays, musical works, art, films and broadcasts against direct copying. Copyright also protects any original work of a non-aesthetic nature, such as design drawings, computer software, client lists, brochures, photographs and other documents.
As with unregistered design right (which is another related form of unregistered intellectual property right) copyright arises automatically when a work is created. It is not necessary to apply for copyright protection in the United Kingdom, as instead it simply applies to any original work once it has been recorded in permanent form.
We advise on all aspects of copyright and related unregistered design rights, from ownership, exploitation and licensing.
The “Patent Box” scheme to boost investment in UK innovation by offering a corporation tax cut on profits associated with patents was introduced in May 2013.
The Patent Box is a tax relief scheme that is available to companies liable to UK corporation tax. The Patent Box scheme operates in parallel with, and in addition to, the existing R&D Tax Credits scheme.
Your accountant will be better placed to advise you on the detail, but our strength lies in identifying, filing and prosecuting patents to cover your product developments.
Information on the new Patent Box scheme can be found here, and for the existing R&D Tax Credits scheme here.
The Patent Box scheme is therefore another commercial reason to seek patent protection.