Branding and Intellectual Property

Intellectual property is a collective term. It covers copyright, trade marks, designs and patents. Each of these has its own page on OUT-LAW.COM.

Here you'll find some useful introductions to the issues and some content on intellectual property generally. We also deal here with issues that involve a mixture of types of intellectual property.

OUT-LAW Guides (UK law)

• Choosing and protecting your brand
  An introduction to trade marks, domain names and design rights and how they protect your brand.
• Intellectual property in websites: ownership and protection
  How to identify copyright and other intellectual property issues in websites.
• Linking and framing
  Guidelines for safe hyperlinking and page framing and how to avoid unnecessary disputes.

See also:

Designs
Together, design rights and registration can protect everything about the shape, configuration and appearance of a product – from machine tools and packaging, to desktop icons and surface decorations.

Patents
From drugs to robots, patents protect inventions that are novel, involve an inventive step and are capable of industrial application.

Trade marks
Trade marks can protect your brand and your slogans and many other things that make your business unique.

Confidentiality
You can protect your knowhow just by keeping it secret. Such protection has always been good enough for Coca-Cola's recipe.