Key Ways to Avoid Infringing Other Business’ Intellectual Property Rights in England

If you are a business in England, you should also ensure you are not infringing other business’ intellectual property rights. In this article, we will discuss the key ways to avoid doing this, as it can be highly detrimental to your business if another business commences legal action against you for infringement.

Importance of Intellectual Property Rights

Intellectual property is a highly valuable asset for businesses and often the reason for a brand’s significant success. Essentially, intellectual property provides exclusive rights to its owner. Therefore, if you wanted to use another business’ intellectual property, you would need their consent. The protection of a business’ intellectual property rights is its own responsibility. If you are infringing its rights, this could result in formal legal action against your business.

You can be liable for intellectual property infringement for using any intellectual property without consent, including:

• registered designs;
• a registered trade mark; and
• copyrighted material.

Infringement proceedings can result in high legal costs, and you should avoid them to the best of your ability.

Conducting a Trade Mark Search 

You should always look at trade marks that other businesses own before:

• designing your own trade mark;
• registering your trade mark with the Intellectual Property Office; or
• using your trade mark for your products or services.

You can find already registered trade marks through the Intellectual Property Office, as well as those that are currently going through the registration process. Trade marks must be unique and distinctive. Therefore, if you find your own trade mark to be highly similar or identical to one already registered, you should change it to ensure it is distinct to avoid any intellectual property infringement.

Conduct a Search of Designs

If you are designing a new product, you must ensure it does not infringe another competitor’s design rights, whether they are registered or unregistered. The key is that you should not copy another business’ designs either partially or in full. You can use the online search tool to find a registered design in England using the design owner’s name or the design number. A registered design has exclusive rights and is:

• unique to the industry;
• an original work;
• new; and
• inoffensive.

A registered design will have protection for up to 25 years. Therefore, you should conduct a thorough search, usually with the assistance of an intellectual property professional. That way, you can confirm your design will not infringe on another business’ intellectual property rights.

Using Creative Works for Your Business

You may be considering using creative works for advertising or marketing, taking advantage of assets like: 

• sound recordings; 
• artistic works; 
• designs; 
• illustration work; or 
• other original works. 

It is important to be aware that creative work is usually subject to copyright. Therefore, you would need the copyright owner’s consent to use the material. If you fail to do this, you may be liable for copyright infringement, meaning the copyright owner can start legal proceedings against you for infringing their intellectual property rights.

You should therefore conduct a check to find out whether copyright protects the particular piece of creative work you intend to use. If it is, contact the copyright owner to enquire about consent to use the material and potentially licence the material for a fee. 

Examples of copyright infringement to avoid are things like:

• using sound recordings on your website without consent or licence agreements in place;
• producing a newsletter with images that the copyright owner has not permitted to be on the material; or
• giving a presentation with a film recording that is copyrighted material without permission or a licence in place.

Key Takeaways

A key task you can do to avoid infringing another business’ intellectual property rights is to carry out all appropriate checks on any intellectual property already registered with the Intellectual Property Office. This will assist in avoiding any accidental intellectual property infringement or unnecessary legal action. You can review whether your trade mark design is already registered and also conduct searches into registered designs or copyright work you intend to use. Critically, you should avoid intellectual property disputes due to the high legal costs of defending in legal proceedings. Therefore, it is advisable to instruct a legal professional to assist you when considering using intellectual property.

If you need help or advice on how to avoid infringing on another business’ intellectual property rights, our experienced intellectual property lawyers can assist as part of our LegalVision membership. For a low monthly fee, you will have unlimited access to lawyers to answer your questions and draft and review your documents. Call us today on 0808 196 8584 or visit our membership page.

Frequently Asked Questions