Intellectual Property

What intellectual property is

Having the right type of intellectual property protection helps you to stop people stealing or copying:

the names of your products or brands
your inventions
the design or look of your products
things you write, make or produce

Copyright, patents, designs and trade marks are all types of intellectual property protection. You get some types of protection automatically, others you have to apply for.

What counts as intellectual property

Intellectual property is something that you create using your mind – for example, a story, an invention, an artistic work or a symbol.

Owning intellectual property

You own intellectual property if you:

created it (and it meets the requirements for copyright, a patent or a design)
bought intellectual property rights from the creator or a previous owner
have a brand that could be a trade mark, for example, a well-known product name

Intellectual property can:

have more than one owner
belong to people or businesses
be sold or transferred

Intellectual property rights allow you to make money from the intellectual property you own.

Intellectual property if you’re self-employed

If you’re self-employed, you usually own the intellectual property even if your work was commissioned by someone else – unless your contract with them gives them the rights.

Protect your intellectual property

Protecting your intellectual property makes it easier to take legal action against anyone who steals or copies it.

Types of protection

The type of protection you can get depends on what you’ve created. You get some types of protection automatically, others you have to apply for.

Automatic protection

Type of protection	Examples of intellectual property
Copyright	Writing and literary works, art, photography, films, TV, music, web content, sound recordings
Design right	Shapes of objects

Protection you have to apply for

Type of protection	Examples of intellectual property	Time to allow for application
Trade marks	Product names, logos, jingles	4 months
Registered designs	Appearance of a product including, shape, packaging, patterns, colours, decoration	1 month
Patents	Inventions and products, eg machines and machine parts, tools, medicines	Around 5 years

Keep these types of intellectual property secret until they’re registered. If you need to discuss your idea with someone, use a non-disclosure agreement.

Using more than one type of protection

More than one type of protection could be linked to a single product, for example, you could:

register the name and logo as a trade mark
protect a product’s unique shape as a registered design
patent a completely new working part
use copyright to protect drawings of the product

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