In this post I’m going to offer some information that I think might be quite useful to you when you’re establishing a new business or product. You’re likely to be thinking about a name, commissioning a website and logo to launch it, and considering how you will market it and so on. Relatively few people [...]
Posts under ‘Intellectual Property’
Does Lack of Professional Advice Lead to Unnecessary Trade Mark Registration?
When a key player in the Government’s plans to strengthen the IP framework, encourages business owners to file their own trade marks, explaining this is to help them afford trade mark registration, I wonder what’s going on. Many lawyers educate the public about the value of taking legal advice. So, it is somewhat surprising for [...]
Stay Vigilant: Limitation Periods and Copyright Infringement
Copyright offers crucial protection to individuals and businesses alike enabling them to own and exploit their creative works. This might include photographs, articles, software, website designs, films, music and a range of other forms of creative expression. Copyright law allows authors to claim compensation when their work is copied without authorisation, but a critical issue [...]
Why Every Business Needs an Intellectual Property Strategy
Nowadays there is increasing awareness about the value of “intellectual property” and brands. Yet “intellectual property” is a term that alienates many people because they don’t understand what it means or how it applies to them. According to IP Asset Maximizer, more than 50 % of corporate value today lies in the form of intangible [...]
Software Licences and the US First Sale Doctrine – Psystar judgment handed down
Key to Apple’s surging popularity have been the ease of use of its products and software, and seamless integration between its devices and services. Arguably unique in the personal computer industry, Apple exercises strict controls over every element of its product line. This control over both the hardware and software used in its computers, peripherals [...]
Software Patents and 1-Click Shopping
Websites, iPad apps, accounting systems, and the software running on your home wireless router are all the result of an often considerable investment of time, money, skill and effort. In return, their creators are typically rewarded with a bundle of intellectual property rights. One of the most important of these is copyright, which protects the [...]
Georgia-Pacific and Kimberly-Clark: Quilted Designs and Functional Trade Marks
Intellectual property is the cornerstone of many modern businesses, and the law offers various mechanisms to safeguard know how, creativity, ingenuity and investment in reputation and marketing. A significant complexity when it comes to securing rights is deciding which means of protection is/are appropriate. An important factor in such a decision is the nature of [...]
Bayfiles – The Jolly Roger at Half Mast?
The Pirate Bay has been thrown into the limelight a number of times, not least following a legal battle over copyright infringement which resulted in jail sentences for the four site operators in April 2009 (though at the time of writing, the website is still operational). Recently two of its founders announced their decision to [...]
Newzbin, the DEA, and the Great Wall of BT – A Mixed Bag for the MPA?
Further progress was made in the Newzbin saga last week when the High Court ordered BT to prevent its subscribers from accessing the website. You may recall that the site had hopped abroad to the Seychelles, escaping the reach of the UK courts (or so it thought). However, despite its emigration, the Motion Picture Association [...]
Stormtroopers and the Supreme Court
The United Kingdom’s Supreme Court recently rendered its decision in the first Intellectual Property case heard since it opened for business in October 2009. The case, Lucasfilm v Ainsworth, concerned infringement of copyright subsisting in Stormtrooper helmets, which had in the past been produced by Andrew Ainsworth for the Star Wars films. Under ss.51 and [...]
