Many businesses do not realise that the shape and configuration of a product or its packaging or promotional material can be the subject of rights under the Copyright Act.<\/p>\n
Copyright can only be relied upon to protect against copying \u2013 it does not confer a monopoly. Thus\u00a0copyright\u00a0cannot be used to prevent the production of similar works created by someone else having no connection with the original copyright work. The onus is on the plaintiff to prove actual copying.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, copyright only relates to the form, expression and appearance of a product. It does not relate to the underlying idea of the product or its principle of operation.<\/p>\n
Patents alone can protect ideas and principles of operation.<\/p>\n
A registered design is essentially a registered form of copyright. The advantages of a design registration are that it confers a monopoly, ownership of the design is readily proved, and it is no defence to claim that the design was not actually copied.<\/p>\n
Copyright\u00a0should therefore be used only as a secondary line of defence for innovators who have been unable to obtain patent or design protection for their product.<\/p>\n
All copyright works and products derived from them should be marked with the international copyright symbol \u00a9, the owner\u2019s name and the date of creation \u2013 eg: \u00a9 James & Wells 2009.<\/p>\n
This marking acts as a deterrent to would-be copiers. It may also make claiming damages in a\u00a0copyright infringement action\u00a0more straightforward, as the defendant would have difficulty arguing that the infringement was innocent and the existence of copyright was unknown to them.<\/p>\n
In general, copyright in the design of a product lasts for 16 years from the date the design is industrially applied to products.<\/p>\n
Copyright subsisting in drawings contained in patents and registered designs ceases when the patent or design registration ceases.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0rights of a copyright owner\u00a0may be readily licensed for others to use.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Many businesses do not realise that the shape and configuration of a product or its packaging or promotional material can be the subject of rights under the Copyright Act. Copyright can only be relied upon to protect against copying \u2013 it does not confer a monopoly. Thus\u00a0copyright\u00a0cannot be used to prevent the production of similar…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":10,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4273","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n