Intellectual Property Essay

1) Comp ar and line the differing aegis offered by the faithfulness of ostensibles and the law of procure. In your opinion, atomic number 18 these differences accidental or do they baffle a sound commercial or legal basis ? understanding property seriouss be exclusive rights for their possessors. ordinal p wileies are then generally prohibited from the use or exploitation of what is excluded by these rights. It is to be clarified that it is intended to focus solely on right of first publications and patents. Trademark, confidentiality and designs, the other main types of intellectual property are beyond the reaching of this es articulate.There is nonpareil simple fashion to comprehend the twain concepts of patents and copyrights. On the one hand patent are rights everywhere an cunning. An museion is the impression of reasoning. It is the yieldion of some unsanded or improved lick or products that are both(prenominal) non obvious for a soul versatile in the field and useful. On the other hand, copyrights are rights that nurture art in general, art being both products of humans creative activities go awayd that more than superficial do naturalise has been done. The patent law lavatory be seen as a monopoly created by parliament.In the year 1623 the Statute of Monopolies declared that all monopolies are void and of no effect. But an exception was made for the future sniffy of patent for the term of fourteen long time to the first inventor provided it was non contrary to reason of raising price or restrictive of trade. Nowadays, it is fundamentally the alike(p) principles that are applied. The copyright law can be seen as a way to restraint trade granted by Parliament. In 1709, the procure twist gave an antecedent the exclusive right of printing his turn tail for fourteen historic period. If the law has extended, the same concepts are still applied.The first assign is the difference between what is ruled by patent and copyright. Patent law is protecting inventions. Patent exemplify 1977 defined an invention as some social function new then which does not form part of the declare of the art (s. 2(1))1. The state of the art being what was made avail satisfactory to the public in any way before the priority date of the patent (s. 2(2))2, this date signify to the date of alter on which certain imposingities are satisfied. The forefront to be asked in differentiate to know if it was part of the art is not whether an information has in truth been accessed but whether information could make been accessed prior the filling date.An old illustration of this would be the case of Lang v Gisborne3. In congener to a book, the question was whether the information was available and not whether the book had actually been sold. Thus we need to define what is construed as available to the public. In the Windsurfer4 case, a 12 year old boy, who built a sailboard and use it in public during his holidays, h ad been enough to make this invention available to the public. Moreover, in assessing if a disclosure of information is enough it depart be considered whether the person proficient in the art leave alone be able to carry come to the fore trial and experiments to kick the bucket to the invention (Synthon5).The last main hurdle for the obtention of a patent will be the indispensableness of inventiveness. An inventive tonus is one that is not obvious to a person dexterous in the art (s. 3)6 and whether there is an inventive step or not has to be decided without hindsight (Haberman v Jackel7). A person 1 Patents bite 1977 s. 2(1) Patents proceed 1977 s. 2(2) 3 Lang v Gisborne, 31 LJ. Ch 769 (1862) 4 Windsurfer world(prenominal) v Tabur nautical 1985 RPC 59, CA 5 Synthon v Smithkline Beecham 2005 UKHL 59, 2006 RPC 10 6 Patents Act 1977 s. 7 Haberman v Jackel outside(a) Ltd (1999) The times 21 January 1999 2 1 skilled in the art has been described as a graduate or engineer i n the field concerned with a few eld of experience (Dyson v make clean8) , it was too held that it should be a composite entity, in other words a team of graduate and engineer (General dull & rubber eraser Co v Firestone Tyre and rubber Co Ltd9). Furthermore, an invention needs to be capable of industrial application which is rarely an issue. It will be analysed as much(prenominal) if it can be produced or used in any kind of industry, including agriculture (s. )10. Finally, an invention is patentable if not be to one of the excluded matter. A disco real, scientific opening, mathematical method, a scheme, rule or method of performing a mental act and playing a game or doing business are excluded (s. 1(2))11. Some others interesting exclusions exist, such as a literary, dramatic, musical theater or artistic work or any other aesthetic creation, a program for a computing device and the presentation of information. These exclusions are interesting because they form part of w hat is subject to copyright, so what is saved by copyright.Indeed, copyright subsist in cableal literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works, sound recordings, films or broadcasting and typographical system of rules of published edition (s. 1)12. As with patent, a copyright need to litigate certain criteria in order to be granted. There is a desirement of originality that applies to literary, musical, dramatic and artistic works but not to sound recording, films or broadcast. In the case of Univeristy of capital of the united Kingdom Press13, it was established that the work must not be copied from another work but should originate from the generator differently it will infringe.If the author has spent sufficient degree of skill, labour and opinion to establish originality then his work would be able to be protected by copyright. But often there is no requirement as to that forest. Thus, there is no requirement that a work should actually have literary value (Univeristy of London Press)14, it must be more than de minimis so that single words will not be protected by copyright (Exxon Corp)15. On the same line, there is no requirement of quality or merit of music as long as the sounds are not too simple and trivial. Furthermore, artistic works need not to present any merit (Vermaat and Powell v Boncrest)16.Finally, the protection offered by copyright exclusively protects works that have been expressed in tangible format. In order to have ownership in the copyright, it is important to be able to prove authorship, often by producing the original creation of the work. If the exercise to get a copyright seems to be a simple and short process the process to obtain a patent is long and complicated. A formal registration is needed, has to be done within the UK Patent Office. One could say that is to allow authors which do not belong to a large conjunction to be protected easily with copyright as soon as they make their original work in aHaberman v Jackel I nternational Ltd 1999 FSR 683 Dyson Appliances v Hoover 1997 RPC 1, CA 9 General Tire & Rubber Co v Firestone Tyre & Rubber Co 1972 RPC 457 10 Patents Act 1977 s. 4 11 Patents Act 1977 s. 1(2) 12 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 s. 1 13 University of London Press Ltd v. University Tutorial Press Ltd (1916) 2 Ch. 601 14 University of London Press Ltd v. University Tutorial Press Ltd (1916) 2 Ch. 601 15 Exxon Corp v Exxon Insurance Consultants International Ltd 1981 3 both ER 241 16 Vermaat and Powell v Boncrest Ltd (No. 2) 2002 FSR 21 8 2 angible format. It is why copyright is an accepted theory and seen as a limited monopoly17. Such monopoly is necessary to promote the tercet level of competition in modern business, which are production wasting disease and innovation18. On the contrary patent protects large companies invention. It is fair to require more formalities from them to obtain a protection as they are able to call large resources and facilities. Many steps have to be followed but only a brief explanation will be given as it is a complex area. The most important thing is the specification that has to be made (s. 4(2))19. The specification need to be very precise. It shall describe the invention in a clear and completed way so that the invention can be performed by a person skilled in the art (s. 14(3))20. Therefore the specification should explain what has been created, the problems that the invention solves, how the invention differs from what has been created before. It has been explained previously how the patent and copyright cover different subject, so that, for example, music is protected by copyright and the Dyson mechanism of vacuum antiseptic is protected by patent.If they cover different area, they also provide protection in rather different manners. In the patent law, there are two main aggressions, infringement of a process, infringement of a product by process patents and infringement of a product. There is an infringement by a party when a party use a process and when the party must have known or it must have been obvious in the circumstance that the use of the process would infringe the patent (s. 60(1)(b))21. For product patents, the intention is irrelevant (Procter v. Bennis)22.Only the patentee has the right to dispose of the product, which is interpret mainly as the right to sell the product (s. 60(1)(a))23. Note that it does not exclude the right to sell the product at a later on date, this is the doctrine of exhaustion. In the same way, he is the only one who can import the product. An infringement will be constituted if someone imports a product when in trade. The right to keep the product for disposal or otherwise is also an exclusive right of the patentee. Lastly, the most important is the right to make the product.It has been held, that modifications or repairs of a patented product could be infringement as well ( coupled Wire)24. It is possible to compare the interpretation in United Wire t o the owners rights of a copyright over adaptations of the original work. The copyright owner of a musical, dramatic or literary work is the only one to have the right to make an adaptation of the work (s. 16(1))25. An adaptation will be interpreted as such only if it cogitates to a solid part of the copyright work (Sillitoe)26. The rights over the adaptation are the same as the one over the original work.The question is what these rights are over the original work. First, copying the work is an infringement. An exact copy of the work is forbidden. If not completely identical, a two part test has been established (Francis daylight and Hunter)27. Firstly a degree of similarity is required between the two works. A substantial part must have been copied, in order to establish it, a qualitative test and not a vicenary test has to be applied (Ladborke v William 17 The institutionalist theory of law, Neil MacCormick. Copyright law, Monopoly or Monstrosity, by Alan Beckley. (Butterwort h and Co 1996) 19 Patents Act 1977 s. 4(2) 20 Patents Act 1977 s. 14(3) 21 Patents Act 1977 s. 60(1)(b) 22 Procter v. Bennis et al. (1887), 4 R. P. C. 333 23 Patents Act 1977 s. 60(1)(a) 24 United Wire v Screen Repair Services (Scotland) 2000 4 all in all ER 353, HL 25 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 s. 16(1) 26 Sillitoe v McGraw mound Book Co. (UK) Ltd. 1983 FSR 545 27 Francis Day & Hunter Ltd v Bron 1963 Ch 587 (UK CofA) RR 207 18 3 Hill)28. Secondly, the infringing work must have some casual participation with the original work, which means that the infringing work must have some origin in the plaintiffs work.There are other main forbidden acts, such as issuing copies of the work to the public, performing, showing or playing the work in public, to broadcast the work or include it in a cable program service. It is also forbidden to authorise another to do a restricted act (s16(2))29. As seen previously, there is a colossal protection for owners of copyright and patent, but in order to achieve a balance between owners and the public, some refutal have been created in both patent and copyright law. In copyright law, there is a defence of fair dealing which allows research and private study only if is not undertaken for commercial purposes (s. 78)30 and only if it is for the persons own use (Sillitoe)31. Moreover, multiple copies will infringe, thus only singles copies are allowed (s29(3))32. The defence of fair dealing allows reflection or re get word provided sufficient acknowledgment is present which is obtained by identifying the work by its title or any description and by identifying the author of the original work. Similar defence exists in patent law and provide protection for acts done in private and for non commercial purposes (s. 60(5)(a))33.There is also a defence for acts done in an experimental way and which relate to the matter of the invention (s. 60(5)(b))34. One of the main differences between patent and copyright is the length of protection they offer. A patent is granted for 20 years from the filing date. In literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works copyright protect the work during the authors life plus 70 years from the date the author dies. Why a difference in length between copyright and patent? As verbalise previously, an author is protected by copyright all is lifetime because he is considered to be a weaker party.The 20 years protection offered with patent has been justified because of the time needed in testing of pharmaceutical and similar products for health and safety reason. In the point of view of a customer and the public copyright could be seen as a restriction on trade and patent as a monopoly for 20 years. It is common legal principle to say that restriction and monopoly are only justified to the extent that they are necessary to the public benefit. ecclesiastic Sydney Templeman said patent and copyright are necessary to ensure that an inventor continues to invent and that an autho r continue to publish35. 8 Ladbroke (Football) Ltd. v. William Hill (Football) Ltd. 1964 1 W. L. R. 273 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 s. 16(2) 30 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 s. 178 31 Sillitoe v McGraw Hill Book Co. (UK) Ltd. 1983 FSR 545 32 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 s. 29(3) 33 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 s. 60(5)(a) 34 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 s. 60(5)(b) 35 Lord Sydney Templeman, Abstract Prior to his appointment to the UK House of Lords as a right Lord. Oxford University Press 1998 29 4Case List Dyson Appliances v Hoover 1997 RPC 1, CA Exxon Corp v Exxon Insurance Consultants International Ltd 1981 3 All ER 241 Francis Day & Hunter Ltd v Bron 1963 Ch 587 (UK CofA) RR 207 General Tire & Rubber Co v Firestone Tyre & Rubber Co 1972 RPC 457 Haberman v Jackel International Ltd (1999) The times 21 January 1999 Haberman v Jackel International Ltd 1999 FSR 683 Lang v Gisborne, 31 LJ. Ch 769 (1862) Ladbroke (Football) Ltd. v . William Hill (Football) Ltd. 1964 1 W. L. R. 273 Sillitoe v McGraw Hill Book Co. (UK) Ltd. 1983 FSR 545 Synthon v Smithkline Beecham 2005 UKHL 59, 2006 RPC 10 United Wire v Screen Repair Services (Scotland) 2000 4 All ER 353, HL University of London Press Ltd v. University Tutorial Press Ltd (1916) 2 Ch. 601 Vermaat and Powell v Boncrest Ltd (No. 2) 2002 FSR 21 Windsurfer International v Tabur Marine 1985 RPC 59, CA Bibliography Holyoak & Torremans, reason Property Law (5th ed. 2008) Oxford Colston & Galloway, Modern Intellectual Property Law (3rd ed. 2010) Routledge Bainbridge, Intellectual Property (8th ed. 2010) Pearson Lexis Nexis Westlaw 5