Dealing with Intellectual Property

Intellectual property (IP) is original work created by an organisation or individual that the law can protect. It might be creative, such as a game character, or identify a business, such as a bottle's distinctive shape.

Why organisations protect their intellectual property

Original work usually has commercial value: it is what an organisation sells, what makes its brand recognisable, and what gives it an advantage over competitors. Protection stops others benefiting from that work without permission, so a rival cannot copy the game character and sell it as its own.

Protection gives the owner control over how the work is used and lets them make money from it, either by selling the work or by charging someone else to use it.

Protection is also an incentive. A studio will only spend two years and a lot of money developing a new game if it knows the finished work can be protected. Without that reassurance, fewer organisations and individuals would invest time and money in creating and innovating.

The main methods of protection

There are three main methods of protecting intellectual property:

Intellectual property is not the same as the data an organisation holds. Firewalls, encryption and passwords protect data, but do nothing to stop a rival copying your logo.

Infringement and the drawbacks

Infringing intellectual property rights means using protected work without permission. An organisation can take legal action against anyone who infringes its copyright, trademarks or patents, and can seek fines and compensation. If a small studio finds a rival selling T-shirts with its game character, it can go to court to stop the sales and claim the rival's profits.

Protection has drawbacks: registering trademarks and patents, and enforcing rights, is costly and slow, hitting small organisations hardest. Protection can hold back improvement: while a patent is in force, others cannot use or improve the invention without permission, so better versions may be delayed.

Copyright is an automatic legal right that gives the creator of an original creative work control over how it is used. It begins automatically when the work is created, so you do not have to apply for it. A copyright symbol (©) is useful because it reminds people who owns the work, but it is not required. A drawing with no symbol is still protected, and adding a symbol to someone else's work does not make it yours.

Expression, not ideas

Copyright protects the way an idea is expressed, not the idea itself. Imagine you tell a friend your idea for a maze game. Your friend can make their own maze game with a similar idea, but they cannot copy your program code, your character drawings or your level layouts without permission. Those are your expression of the idea.

Copyright can cover original literary works such as writing, dramatic works, artistic works, musical works, sound recordings, films and computer programs. So it can apply to something as different as a hand-bound comic sold at a school fair, the recording of a school orchestra's concert, or the code behind a mobile app.

What the holder can control

The copyright holder can stop others copying, renting or lending, performing, broadcasting, showing in public or adapting the work without permission. For example, a photographer could object if a café printed one of their photos on menus and posters without asking, because that is copying and showing the work in public. The right gives the creator control and a way to earn from their work.

Copyright protects a creative work, but the person who made it is not always the person who owns the rights. Ownership can change hands, the right runs out after a set time, and a few uses are allowed without asking.

Who owns the copyright

Copyright belongs to the creator of the work: the person who wrote, drew, composed or programmed it. Ownership can move, though:

• If an employee creates a work as part of their job, the employer usually owns the copyright. The employee was paid to produce the work, so the organisation that paid keeps the rights.
• Rights can be transferred to another person or organisation, for example by selling them or leaving them to someone in a will. Whoever receives the rights then decides how the work may be used.

How long copyright lasts

Copyright does not last for ever. It lasts for a period set by law, and the length depends on the type of work. Once that period expires, anyone can reprint, adapt or reuse an old book whose copyright has run out, without asking permission.

Fair dealing

Fair dealing lets you use a copyright work without permission in a few limited cases while the right is still in force: private study or research, education, criticism or review, reporting current events and private back-ups.

It is not a general permission to use a work however you like. The use must be fair, usually limited in amount, and must not take away the owner's chance to make money. Quoting two sentences from a geography textbook in a school project is fair dealing; scanning the whole book and publishing it online is not, because you copied far more than you needed.

A trademark is a recognisable sign, symbol, name or logo that identifies a company's goods or services. It is how customers spot a brand and tell one company's products apart from another's. For example, a football club's crest on a shirt tells you the shirt is official, and a drink's distinctive bottle shape tells you who made it.

Registered and unregistered

The two symbols that appear next to brands show the difference:

Many people assume a trademark happens on its own as soon as a company designs a logo. It does not. Unlike copyright, a trademark is not automatic: to gain legal protection the company must apply for it and have it registered.

What registration involves

Registering a trademark takes time and costs money, because the application has to be checked to make sure the mark is not too close to one already registered. It lasts for a fixed period rather than forever, but the owner can renew it, so a well-used brand can stay protected for a very long time.

Why it matters to a business

A trademark protects brand identity: the name and look that customers trust. Once registered, the owner can take action to stop others using a confusingly similar mark, such as a rival snack company bringing out a bag with the same colours, lettering and shape. If a copy is close enough that shoppers might pick it up by mistake, the owner can demand it is changed or withdrawn, and can take legal action against the copier.

Counterfeiting is the illegal use of a trademark on similar goods, such as selling fake trainers carrying a well-known logo. Counterfeiting damages the brand owner, because customers who buy poor-quality fakes blame the real company, and it damages the customer, who pays for goods that are not what they seem.

A patent is a legal right that protects an invention — a new product or process, and the way it works. It stops other people making, using or selling your invention without your permission.

What can be patented

Not every idea qualifies. To be granted a patent, an invention must:

• be new — nobody has made or published it before, so you cannot patent something that is already on sale;
• involve an inventive step — it must not be an obvious tweak to something that already exists;
• be capable of being made or used — it has to work in practice, not just be a theory on paper.

For example, a plug that switches itself off once a phone battery is full could be patented, because it is a new device that does a real job. By contrast, a short story cannot be patented — copyright protects the words you write, while a patent protects something that works.

Applying, paying and renewing

A patent is not automatic. You have to apply to a patent office and be granted the patent before you hold any rights at all. Applying is expensive, and it can take a long time while the office checks that your invention really is new. Once granted, the patent must be renewed, usually by paying a fee at intervals, or it lapses and stops protecting you.

The rights it gives, and what happens at the end

While the patent is in force, the owner has exclusive rights: they can stop others making, using or selling the invention, which lets them make money from it. They can also license the patent, letting another business use the invention for a fee, or sell the rights outright to someone else.

Protection does not last forever. Once the patent period ends, any business is free to copy the invention, because the details are published in the patent. That trade-off is what makes patents encourage innovation: an inventor gains a temporary advantage over competitors and a real chance to recover the money spent on research and development, so investing in new ideas is worthwhile.

Licensing is when the owner of intellectual property gives permission for someone else to use their work, under conditions the owner sets out. You need that permission before using protected work, unless a legal exception applies or a licence already covers what you want to do.

Licensing sets the rules

A licence is not a free-for-all: the owner decides exactly what is allowed, and the conditions are binding. Typical restrictions include:

• Non-commercial use only — you can use the work in a free project but not to make money, so a community newsletter is fine while a shop's advert is not.
• Share-alike — if you adapt the work, your new version must be released under the same licence, so nobody can lock up your improved version.
• No adaptations — the work has to be used exactly as it is, with no edits.

Break a condition and you fall outside the licence, which makes your use unauthorised.

Creative Commons

Creative Commons (CC) is a type of licensing that lets work be used free of charge, provided you keep to the conditions the owner has chosen. For example, a track marked CC BY-NC could be used in a school robotics club video, but not as background music in a company advert, because NC means non-commercial. A Creative Commons licence does not mean a work has no conditions and can be used however you like.

Attribution

Attribution means acknowledging the original creator when their work is used under a licence or with permission. Most Creative Commons licences require it. If you use a CC-licensed dragon illustration by a local artist on a club website, name the artist and state the licence, for example "Illustration by J. Okafor, CC BY 4.0", with a link to the licence terms. Credit does not create permission: attributing a song you had no right to use does not make that use legal.

Ethical use of intellectual property means treating other people's work fairly. It is about more than avoiding illegal copying: you respect the creator's rights, keep to the conditions of any licence, and give credit where it is due. Something can be legal but still unethical.

Legal is not always ethical

Imagine you download a free set of game sprites. The licence allows you to use them without crediting the artist, so using them is legal. If you publish a game and let players believe you drew the sprites yourself, you have still taken credit for someone else's work. Many people would call that unfair even though no law has been broken. Ethical use means not taking credit for another person's work, and not using it in ways the creator would object to.

When a licence does not cover what you want to do, ethical use means asking the creator for permission rather than assuming you can do it. If permission is given, you follow every condition attached to it.

Credit and conditions

Giving credit, often called attribution, means naming the original creator when you use their work. Some licences make this a condition; even when they do not, naming the creator is the fair thing to do. It shows that the work is theirs and helps other people find the original. Credit is not permission, though: naming the creator does not give you the right to use work that you have no licence or permission for.

Following licence terms is part of ethical use because the creator has set those terms for a reason. They might limit use to non-commercial projects, or ask that changes are described. Keeping to those terms respects the creator's control over their work.

Why organisations encourage it

Organisations should encourage ethical use as well as legal use. It builds trust with creators and customers, and it protects the organisation's reputation. If a company is known for using other people's work fairly, creators are more likely to let it use their work in future.