A Brief Introduction to Intellectual Property Law

Intellectual property law is an aspect of the law that is designed to protect the ideas and creations of individuals and is something that may well pertain to the private sector in a variety of different scenarios.

If you have come up with an original idea or invention, or if you have artistic materials on a website or social media channel, then those belong to you and you are protected by law if anyone should try to use them. If you were to find someone using your artwork on their website, then you would be able to tell them to take it down and if they refused, potentially involve a lawyer and process servers.

But whether or not you would have a case would depend on the nature of the work to some extent and the protection that you took out on it. There are three types of intellectual property protection that can apply to original ideas and works:

Patent: Which is an expensive form of protection that is used to protect inventions and other unique creations. A patent protects the way that something works, rather than the idea itself and is something that only a large company would likely be able to invest in.

Trademark: A trademark is something like a character, a company name or a logo – in other words intellectual property that represents you or your business. This is much more affordable and easy to acquire and if you have your own business there’s a good chance you will own a trademark.

Copyright: Copyright protects creative works and is free and comes into effect immediately. In other words, if you have written a story or a poem then no one can use that without your say so.

Another form of protection is a ‘NDA’ or ‘non-disclosure agreement’. If you understand the above and you still believe someone is in violation of your copyright/trademark then consider contacting a lawyer and process server.