IP terms in everyday language

IP writing uses familiar words in precise ways. “Owner,” “permission” and “protected” sound simple until an agreement or a dispute turns on what they mean. Use this glossary to name the right you are dealing with, then ask the question that matters for that right.

The main kinds of rights

Copyright protects original expression: books, music, paintings, films, photographs, computer programs, databases, maps and technical drawings, among others. It protects the expression, not the idea, procedure, method of operation or mathematical concept behind it. If you write and illustrate instructions for a new way to fold a box, your text and drawings are covered; the folding method is not.1

A trademark is a sign that distinguishes one business’s goods or services from another’s. Words, letters, numerals, drawings, symbols and three-dimensional features can all serve; for a musician, a stage name or a band logo. You get one by applying to the trademark office of each country where you want protection, or through WIPO’s Madrid System, which covers several territories in one procedure. A registration usually lasts ten years and you can renew it indefinitely by paying the renewal fees.2

A patent is an exclusive right granted for an invention. It lets the owner stop others from commercially making, using, distributing, importing or selling the invention without consent, in the country or region where the patent was granted.3 Protection generally lasts 20 years from the filing date.7 You start by filing an application with a national or regional patent office. An application is a request, not the right: the exclusive right exists once the office grants the patent.3

An industrial design is the ornamental side of a product: three-dimensional features such as its shape, or two-dimensional features such as patterns, lines or color. Most countries protect a design only once it is registered. Some protect designs under patent law as “design patents,” some give short, limited protection without registration, and some designs are also protected by copyright as works of art. WIPO’s Hague System lets you seek design protection in several countries with one application.4

A trade secret is confidential information that can be sold or licensed: a manufacturing process, a supplier or client list, a formula, a recipe, source code. It qualifies when it is commercially valuable because it is secret, known only to a limited group of people, and protected by reasonable steps you take to keep it secret.5 Stamping a file “confidential” is one step. The test is whether you actually limit who sees it.

Words you meet in agreements

A license is permission from the owner to use a work on the terms you agree. A limited license covers a specific purpose, such as one magazine edition; any other use needs another license. An exclusive license makes you the only person who can use the work while the agreement lasts, and that excludes the owner too.6

An assignment transfers ownership of the rights. Under UK government guidance, buying a copyright needs a written agreement, signed by the copyright owner, stating that ownership has passed to you. After that you can generally use the work freely, as long as you respect the author’s moral rights.6

Licensor and licensee. The licensor gives the permission; the licensee receives it. When you read a clause, replace each label with the actual person or business so you can see who is promising what.

Scope is the boundary of what a license covers. If your license is for an illustration in a printed brochure, putting that illustration on T-shirts is a new use: check it against the scope, and if it is not covered, ask for another license.6 “We have a license” tells you little until you know what the license allows.

Words that need their context

Registration means something different for each right. Copyright arises automatically in most countries under the Berne Convention, without registration or any other formality, though most countries offer voluntary registration and WIPO itself does not register copyright.1 Trademarks, patents and, in most countries, designs need an application to an official office.2 3 4 A file in your own records or a timestamp is evidence you keep; it is not a registration.

Moral rights protect an author’s non-economic interests, such as the right to be named as the author, as distinct from the economic rights that let the owner earn from the work.1 In the UK, authors, composers, artists and film directors can require credit, object to changes that harm their reputation, and stop work being falsely attributed to them. Moral rights cannot be sold or transferred the way copyright can, and they last as long as the copyright.6 So buying a work, or even its copyright, does not settle every question about credit and changes.

Prior art and novelty. Prior art is the body of knowledge that already exists. An invention is novel only if it has at least one new feature not already known in its field. Many countries count anything made public anywhere in the world as prior art, so showing your invention before you file can cost you the patent; some countries give a grace period, usually 6 to 12 months. If you must show it, for example to an investor, have them sign a non-disclosure agreement first.7 Talk to a registered patent attorney or agent before you disclose an invention you may want to patent.

Territory is the place a right or agreement covers. Patents are territorial: they protect you only where they were filed and granted, and there is no world patent.7 Trademarks are likewise registered country by country.2 When someone calls a right “international,” ask which countries it covers and which filing put it there. To check a country yourself, find its IP office in WIPO’s Directory of Intellectual Property Offices.8