Resources
What is the difference between Piracy and Counterfeiting?
The term “counterfeit” describes fake goods. The term “piracy” describes the act of reproducing movies, music, books or other copyrighted works without permission from the copyright owner.
What are Trade Marks, Copyrights, Registered Copyrights, Registered Designs, and Patents?
There are numerous ways that you can protect your creations, whether they are artworks, artistic works, designs, inventions, brand names or logos. These can all be protected, both nationally and internationally by registering with the appropriate official body. Registration gives the owner control of their rights under the protection of the registration and enables them to take legal action against those infringing these rights.
The length of time these registrations remain in force depends on the type of registration.
What is a Trade Mark?
A trademark is a word, name, symbol, or device that is used in trade with goods to indicate the source of the goods and to distinguish them from the goods of others.
Registration gives the owner control over who can use the mark in the geographical area covered by the registration and in respect of the class of goods and/or services for which it is registered. Trademark rights may be used to prevent others from using a confusingly similar mark, but not to prevent others from making the same goods or from selling the same goods or services under a clearly different mark.
Trademarks are usually for 10 years from the date of application, at the end of which it can be renewed if desired.
Trademark registration enables you to take action via the courts against someone else using the same or a similar mark.
What is a Copyright?
Copyright is a form of protection provided to the authors of “original works of authorship” including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works, both published and unpublished. There is a presumption of ownership without registration.
The copyright owner has the exclusive right to reproduce the copyrighted work, to prepare derivative works, to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work, to perform the copyrighted work publicly, or to display the copyrighted work publicly.
Copyright lasts for the author’s lifetime plus 70 years.
Whilst there is a presumption that this is your work even without notice or registration, you cannot seek a claim for copyright infringement unless the work is registered.