Other intellectual property (IP) rights

Design rights

There are 4 types of design right in the UK. A design can be protected by more than 1 of them.

Registered Design right

This protects:

• the outward appearance of a product like jewellery, clothing or furniture
  
• aspects like shape, configuration, 3D pattern or ornamentation

To qualify, the overall impression of a design should be different from any other existing one.

Unregistered Design right

This protects:

• the shape or configuration, internal or external, of a product

To qualify, a design should be new (not copied from an existing design) and should not be commonplace in its field of design at the time it was designed.

Registered Community Design

This is similar to UK Registered Design, but covers the European Union. It is not possible to limit the geographic scope of protection to certain member states.

Unregistered Community Design

This is an automatic right which arises without the need for registration.

Find out more about design rights on the Anti-Copying in Design (ACID) website

Patents

These protect the creator’s rights in inventions. In the UK they are governed by the Patents Act 1977 and granted by the Intellectual Property Office (IPO). The invention must:

• be new: it can never have been made public anywhere in the world at any time before the date of the application
• contain an inventive step: if the invention is compared to what is already known, it would not be obvious to someone with good knowledge and experience of the subject
• be capable of industrial application: so, a product, device or apparatus or an industrial process or method of operation
• not qualify as an exclusion detailed in the Patents Act
• The inventor may choose to apply for a UK patent, a European patent covering any of the European countries or, under the Patent Co-operation Treaty, a patent in any of the 146 co-operating countries (as at June 2012).

Trade marks

These protect the brand name or logo of goods and services. The purpose of a trade mark is to:

• indicate the origin and trade source of goods to a consumer
• distinguish the goods and services of 1 trader from another

So any mark registered as a trade mark must distinguish that business’s goods or services from those of other businesses.

If your mark distinguishes your services from those of another provider, and can be represented graphically, you can register:

• words
• logos
• 3D shapes
• colours
• sounds like jingles
• smells
• concepts
• gestures

Find out more about trade marks on the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) website

More information

Moral rights
The publication right
Warranties and indemnities