IP Health Check (Member Category 1-4)

Trade Marks

A trade mark is a unitary right that lasts forever (as long as you use it!). You can rely on an unregistered trade mark or it can be registered. You can trade mark company names, product names, logos, smells, and sounds.

Read the ACID factsheet

Copyright

Copyright arises automatically (i.e., you don’t have to register it) in the UK but requires registration in some territories such as China and USA. Copyright applies to a number of aspects within your business including images, text, design drawings, product packaging and website content

Read the ACID factsheet

Design Rights in the UK

There are three types of design rights in the UK, each offering different levels of protection:

• Supplementary Unregistered Design Right: This lasts for 0-3 years and replaced the former EU unregistered design right that UK designers benefited from before Brexit. It protects the shape, materials, lines, ornamentation, texture, colour, and contours of a design.
• Unregistered Design Right: This lasts from 3 to 15 years and only protects the shape and configuration of a design.
• Registered Design Right: This lasts up to 25 years and requires renewal every 5 years. It protects the shape, materials, lines, ornamentation, texture, colour, and contours of a design.

The cost of registration and renewal in the UK can be found on the IPO website.

For more information, read the ACID factsheet on UK and EU Design Rights.

Patents

Patents provide protection for technical innovations within a product or process that is a novel step (an invention). You can only benefit from patent protection if you file for it prior to the product entering the market. Patents last for up to 20 years in the UK, providing they are regularly renewed. This varies in other jurisdictions.

Read the ACID factsheet

Trade Secrets

Trade secrets are your knowledge, skills, technical information and know-how, for example recipes and manufacturing processes. These last forever but must be kept confidential. In general, to qualify as a trade secret, the information must be: commercially valuable because it is secret and be known only to a limited group of persons.

IP in Practice

Employment Contracts

Protecting Your Information

Your Website

Artificial Intelligence (AI)