How Can I Ensure My Intellectual Property Rights Are Not Infringed?

If you are a business in England and currently own intellectual property, it is essential to take precautions to avoid intellectual property infringement. Infringement can result in financial or reputational losses, making it crucial to protect your assets. In this article, we will discuss the best ways to ensure your intellectual property rights are not infringed and how to avoid unnecessary infringement proceedings.

Intellectual Property Infringement

Intellectual property, while not a physical asset, is vital for every business and can be highly valuable where you have a strong reputation associated with it. Therefore, it is important to be aware of your responsibility to maintain your intellectual property protection. 

Intellectual property infringement happens when another business uses your intellectual property without your consent. Therefore, you must remain aware of potential instances as these could damage your reputation. Examples of intellectual property infringement include:

• a business using your logo on their products, thus misrepresenting their goods as yours;
• your photography or sound recording being used on another business’ advertising material without your consent; or
• the slogan you have registered as your trade mark being used by another industry competitor without your permission.

Show Your Competitors You Are Aware of Your Rights 

One of the main deterrents of intellectual property infringement is demonstrating your awareness of your intellectual property rights. You can do this simply by placing important intellectual property symbols next to your intellectual property rights.

Registered Trade Marks

If you have registered trade marks with the Intellectual Property Office, you should actively use the ® symbol, which indicates your mark’s registered status. This will indicate, to your competitors, your awareness of the exclusive rights you hold over the mark. It will also act as an important deterrent against using your mark or something highly similar without your consent.

Unregistered Trade Marks

If you own unregistered trade marks, you can use the ™ symbol, which exclusively applies to these marks. While your trade mark is unregistered, you can still build up goodwill with your mark and generate a reputation with your consumers. Using the ™ symbol demonstrates your knowledge that even though your mark is unregistered, you are aware of the intellectual property rights you may still possess.

Copyright

In relation to copyright, this is an automatic right granted to original work, and this work receives legal protection upon creation. There is no requirement to register with the Intellectual Property Office. Consequently, there is no register for competitors to refer to. If you want to avoid copyright infringement, you can use the © symbol, which demonstrates to others you are aware of your copyright protection and are willing to challenge any business that is liable for copyright infringement.

Be Creative With Your Design

Regarding trade marks, you should create a unique and distinctive mark that clearly distinguishes your brand from other competitors in your industry. Trade marks can be:

• logos;
• slogans;
• words;
• colours;
• symbols; or
• a combination of the above.

When designing your trade mark, it is advisable to be as creative as possible. Doing so not only helps your brand be distinct in the marketplace but also creates a valuable tool against intellectual property infringement. It is harder for a competitor to argue they are not infringing your intellectual property rights when your intellectual property is incredibly unique. Therefore, the more original your intellectual property is within your industry, the more difficult you make it for others to defend against potential infringement proceedings.

The Important of Registration Where Possible

The greatest legal protection for your intellectual property is registration with the Intellectual Property Office. You cannot register every type of intellectual property, but you can apply to register:

• trade marks;
• design rights; and
• patents.

Trade marks and design rights can exist in unregistered forms, but it is harder to challenge another business for intellectual property infringement of these rights. Therefore, your intellectual property will have less legal protection. Registration grants your business exclusive rights over your assets, resulting in more straightforward legal action. You will have to prove your ownership if you have unregistered design rights or an unregistered trade mark. However, your exclusive rights are guaranteed upon registration with the Intellectual Property Office when you own registered intellectual property.

Key Takeaways

It is important for business owners in England to be aware of intellectual property protection and how valuable your intellectual property rights are for your company. Intellectual property protection is mostly your responsibility as the intellectual property owner. Still, you can take certain actions to deter competitors from infringing your intellectual property rights. These actions include using the appropriate intellectual property symbols and registering your property with the Intellectual Property Office.

If you need help or advice around protecting trade mark against being infringed, 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