Intellectual property and your work

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1. 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.

You usually will not own the intellectual property for something you created as part of your work while you were employed by someone else.

2. Protect your intellectual property

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

There are different types of protection depending on what you’ve created.

Type of protection Intellectual property it covers Time to allow for application
Registering a trade mark Product names, logos, jingles 4 months
Registering a design Appearance of a product, including its shape, packaging, patterns, decoration 3 weeks
Copyrighting your work Writing and literary works, art, photography, films, TV, music, web content No application needed
Patenting an invention Inventions and products, for example machines, medicines Around 5 years

You get limited automatic protection over some intellectual property, for example design right. However, it’s easier to prove you own intellectual property legally if it is registered.

Keep your intellectual property secret until it’s 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

Getting help

Consider which type of protection you need. You can: