We provide advice on a range of intellectual property rights, including but not limited to patents, trade marks, and copyrights.
Patents
A patent is an exclusive right or monopoly granted to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time, in exchange for the public disclosure of the invention. In Australia, a person can be granted a standard patent and innovation patent depending on the length of protection they offer, the time they take to process and the type of invention they seek to cover.
Trade Marks
A trademark is the sign which customers use to recall your product or service. It is what defines your products or services from others and can include:
- your logo
- your brand name
- your unique icon
- your slogan
- aspects of your packaging
- colour
- sound
- scent
- your own personal name
- a domain name
Registration provides you the exclusive rights to the trade mark in any market place, real or virtual, and takes legal precedence over both business name and domain name registration. Registration of a business, company or domain name does not in itself give you any proprietary rights to the name. A registered trade mark right is a legally enforceable asset which you can licence, assign or sell. We highly recommend that you protect your trade mark in each and every market you service. Our lawyers can assist you with this.
Copyright
Copyright protects the original expression of ideas, and not the ideas themselves. Works protected by copyright include: books, films, music, sound recordings, newspapers, magazines, artwork. Copyright also protects originally created typographical arrangements, databases, media broadcasts, computer programs, compositions of other people’s work such as academic journals or CD compilations. Once an idea or creative concept is documented on paper or electronically, it becomes automatically protected by copyright. Any tampering of such work could amount to a breach of your copyright. Copyright protection is covered by the Copyright Act 1968 and gives you exclusive rights to license others in regard to copying your work, performing it in public, broadcasting it, publishing it and making an adaptation of the work.
Our lawyers can advise and guide you through your creations and inventions to ensure that you full IP rights are protected.
