Intellectual Property (IP)

Patent
Is to protect the features and processes that make things work. This lets inventors profit from their inventions. A patent gives us the ability to take legal action to try to stop others from copying, manufacturing, selling, and importing our invention without your permission. (Intellectual Property Office, 2013)

Trade marks
A trade mark is a sign which can distinguish your goods and services from those of your competitors (you may refer to your trade mark as your "brand"). It can be for example words, logos or a combination of both. The only way to register your trade mark is to apply to us - The Intellectual Property Office. (Intellectual Property Office, 2013)

Design
A Registered Design is a legal right which protects the overall visual appearance of a product or a part of a product in the country or countries you register it. For the purposes of registration, a design is legally defined as being "the appearance of the whole or part of a product resulting from the features of, in particular, the lines, contours, colors, shape, texture or materials of the product or ornamentation." (Intellectual Property Office, 2013)

Copyright
Protect:
* literary works, including novels, instruction manuals, computer programs, song lyrics, newspaper articles and some types of database
* dramatic works, including dance or mime
* musical works
* artistic works, including paintings, engravings, photographs, sculptures, collages, architecture, technical drawings, diagrams, maps and logos
* layouts or typographical arrangements used to publish a work, for a book for instance
* recordings of a work, including sound and film
* broadcasts of a work
Work protected by copyright should only copy or use with the copyright owner's permission.
Copyright applies to any medium. This means that you must not reproduce copyright protected work in another medium without permission. This includes, publishing photographs on the internet, making a sound recording of a book, a painting of a photograph and so on. (Intellectual Property Office, 2013)


References

Intellectual Property Office. 2013. Types Of IP. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types. [Accessed 26 March 14].