Intellectual Property Rights – Patent Registry

Intellectual Property rights are the rights responsible for preventing others from enjoying your intangible property. Those rights include:

Patent;

Trade Marks;

Copyright;

Registered design; and

Unregistered design.

In the UK, The IPO is the governmental agency responsible for the Intellectual Property registry. However, the registry does not prevent these rights from being licenced or assigned.

Patent

The patent is to protect inventions and ideas. The patent is governed by The Patents Act 1977. Section 7 stated that you could register a patent either by personal application, i.e., the inventor himself or by way of any agreement entered into with the inventor. However, if an employee of a company registered his invention in his course of duty, the patent would belong to his employer by virtue of section 39. That situation doesn’t prevent the court from awarding the employee if the court found it just to do so and the employer received an outstanding benefit out of that invention. But the general rule still applies; invention belongs to the employer.

Conditions to register a patent

  • The invention must be new. I.e., it should not be a part of any product available to the public at or before the date of application to register;
  • Involve an invention step in the eyes of a skilled man, not based on the common evaluation; and
  • It should not be a scientific discovery, literary, musical or made contrary to public policy or morality.

After the registration, the IPO may revoke the patent if:

The invention is not patentable;

The owner was not entitled to apply; or

The patent was amended without permission.

The registration will remain for 20 years if the patent is not revoked. The first period will be four years, then renewed annually to the end of the 20 years period. The registered owner during this period will have the right to prevent any other party from making, disposing of, using or even importing a product that carries your IP right, section 60.

Remedies against any breach of your registered patent

  • Obtain an injunction from the court. Allowing you to force the infringer to stop his activities immediately;
  • Account for profit under section 61. That option applies when the infringer is no more violating your registered right. Once you successfully prove his liability, you can opt to prevent the unjustified enrichment of the defendant. This limits the award for the claimant to the sum of the profits made by the defendant out of the breach;
  • Claim for damages. That will be as an alternative to the account for profit under section 61; you can’t claim for both. However, neither are available if the defendant didn’t know that your registered right existed; and
  • Order to deliver up/destroy. It can apply to all products infringing your registered right, including any inextricable articles.