Intellectual Property
Rights
Intellectual Property Rights
Intellectual property rights are often the most valuable assets
owned, used and developed by a software house.
Intellectual property rights include confidential information,
patents, trademarks, designs and most importantly the
copyrights protecting computer programs.
The name under which a product is sold may be registered as
a trademark or protected.
Confidential information
“Which is not public property and public knowledge” [Lord
Greene]
When to take action
Three conditions must be satisfied before an action for breach
of confidence can succeed:
The information must be confidential
The information must have been disclosed in circumstances
which give rise to an obligation of confidence
There must be an actual or anticipated unauthorized use or
disclosure of the information.
Sources of an obligation of confidence
It is normal to qualify the agreement by providing that in
three cases the obligation shall cease, namely:
• if the information subsequently becomes publicly
available other than by breach of Intellectual property
rights 121 confidence on the part of the confidant
• if it was lawfully in the confidant’s possession before the
agreement
• it was acquired by the confidant after the agreement,
from a third party who was not also bound by an obligation
of confidence to the discloser.
Black Box Agreement
(secrets in the box)
Implied contractual obligations
(basically on the ex-employee)
if it is part of general knowledge and skill then he or she can
use but it do depends on the circumstances.
1. The nature of the employment
2. the nature of the information itself
3. whether the relevant information could be easily isolated
from other information which the employee is free to use or
disclose.
Public interest
The obligation to respect confidentiality is not
absolute. If it is in the public interest that
information should be disclosed, then it can be
disclosed.
Copyright
Copyright protects more items generated by
businesses or by individuals than any other
aspect of intellectual property law. It protects the
form in which various things such as
words, numbers and drawings are laid out.
Copyright law gives six exclusive rights to the
owner of copyright.
• copy the work
• issue copies to the public;
• rent or lend the work to the public;
• perform, play or show the work in public;
• broadcast the work or include it in a cable
programmer service
• make an adaptation of the work or to do any of the
above with an adaptation.
Copyright works
Only certain things are protected by copyright
law, and these are known as works.
Under the 1988 Act there are nine types of works,
divided into three categories.
1. original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic
works;
2. sound recordings, films, broadcasts and cable
programmes; and
3. the typographical arrangement of published
editions.
Fixation
a literary work (and thus also a computer
program) must be recorded “in writing or
otherwise” [1988 Act]
For example Music
Who owns copyright?
The first owner of copyright is the author of a
work. The author is the person who creates
a work.
• the author of a sound recording is the producer;
• the author of a film is the producer or principal
director
• if the work is the typographical
arrangement of a published edition, the author
is the publisher etc.
Computer-generated works and computer-
aided design :
Computer-generated
“generated by a computer in circumstances such
that there is no human author of the work”
Computer-aided design
computer-aided design of a boat or a car is an
example of Computer aided
Duration of copyright
