Intellectual property

Week 19Tom Underhill

Intellectual property

• Patents• Registered designs/design rights• Case study/Questions/update (DA).

• Details: http://www.ipo.gov.uk/home.htm

Patents: What is a patent?

• A patent protects new inventions and covers how things work, what they do, how they do it, what they are made of and how they are made. It gives the owner the right to prevent others from making, using, importing or selling the invention without permission.

• Patents can be renewed for a maximum of 20 years.

Patents: What can't I patent?

• You can't patent a concept, for example "flight", because it’s possible to achieve flight using many different means.

What can I patent?

• You can patent the means to achieve a concept like flight providing it's new, inventive, and capable of industrial application.

The benefits of patents: the law.

• Once your invention is patented no one can copy, make, sell, or import your invention without your permission.

• You can sell a licence to someone else for ££££’s.

The benefits of patents: REALITY.

• Once your invention is patented you have the legal right to stop anyone copying, making, selling, or importing your invention without your permission

IF YOU HAVE ENOUGH MONEY TO FIGHT IT IN THE COURTS.

Patents – what qualifies for a patent?

• Your invention must be new • have an inventive step that is not obvious to

someone with knowledge and experience in the subject

• be capable of being made or used in some kind of industry

Patents – what qualifies for a patent?

• Your invention must not be:

a scientific or mathematical discovery, theory or method.a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work.a way of performing a mental act, playing a game or doing business.the presentation of information, or some computer programs.an animal or plant variety.a method of medical treatment or diagnosis.;against public policy or morality.

Benefits of patent protection....

• A patent gives you the right to stop others from copying, manufacturing, selling, and importing your invention without your permission. The existence of your patent may be enough on its own to stop others from trying to exploit your invention. If it does not, it gives you the right to take legal action to stop them exploiting your invention and to claim damages.

Benefits of patents....

• The patent also allows you to:– sell the invention and all the intellectual property (IP) rights – license the invention to someone else but retain all the IP

rights – discuss the invention with others in order to set up a

business based around the invention.– The public also benefit from your patent because the

patent office publish it after 18 months. Others can then gain advance knowledge of technological developments which they will eventually be able to use freely once the patent ceases.

Costs of patents.

• Application fees currently £30.• Costs of enforcement may be far higher.– No-one gets rich from legal action (except….)

• Multi-national approach needed.

Design protection

• Registered designs.• Unregistered design right.

Which designs cannot be registered?

• the appearance of the product design is set because of its technical function;

• the design must be reproduced in an exact form and dimensions in order to allow the product to perform its function;

• the design goes against public policy or accepted principles of public morality;

• if design incorporates a foreign flag or protected symbol, then the applicant will have to get permission from the country concerned. Any UK flag or symbol can be used as long as it is not in a derogatory manner and not owned by the Royal Family.

Conditions for registering designs

• novel at the time you apply. – It must not be identical to a design which has

already been made available to the public.• Possess individual character – – The overall impression that it produces must be

different from any other design which has been made available to the public

Registered designs - rights• making, offering, selling, importing or exporting a product to

which the design has been applied;

• stocking a product for those purposes;

• letting others use the design under terms agreed with you as the registered owner.

• legal action and to claim damages

• May be enough to put anyone off using your design without permission.

How to register

• Send details of the design to the UK Intellectual property office.

• Pay a fee.

Unregistered design right

• An intellectual property right which applies to an original design of the shape or configuration of an item.

• Not a total right of design ownership. It is a right to prevent copying.

• It lasts for 10 years after you have first marketed an item made to the design, up to an overall limit of 15 years from creating the design.

• Design Right is a property which, like any other business commodity, can be bought, sold or licensed.

• Part III of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

What protection doesunregistered Design Right give?

• 10 years of rights.• An ‘exclusive right’ to your design for five years

after you first market it. – claim damages in the civil courts, – apply for an injunction.

• People can then apply for licences of right to use your design for the remaining five years.

• You need not help them....

Who gets rich from patents?

• Designers• Engineers• Manufacturers• Inventors

• Or Lawyers............................

Case Study: Cyclone air cleaners.

• Dyson ‘invented’ the cyclone vacuum cleaner.• In December 1994, Dyson applied for a UK

registered design. • VAX produced a vacuum cleaner using cyclone

technology.• Dyson sued them to make them stop in 2011.

Dyson v Vax Ltd [2011] EWCA Civ 1206

• Whether the Mach Zen produced on the informed user a different overall impression from that of Dyson’s registered design.

• There was no dispute that Dyson’s registered design was “a great departure” from what had gone before.

• Further, there was no dispute as to the characteristics of the informed user who, importantly, was reasonably discriminatory and not the same person as the average consumer in trade mark law.

• Vax’s arguments that there were substantial differences between the designs.

• The Mach Zen produced on the informed user a different overall impression.

THE END