Legal protection for inventions, designs and other information

Abstract

Information is capable of being the stuff of intellectual property and related non-proprietary rights if the correct steps are taken to attract legal protection to the information, to have it recognized as information that the law will protect. Proprietary rights, for example patents for technical inventions (including technical features of computer programs), design rights for industrial designs, database rights for arrangement and contents of a database, and copyright for literary and artistic works (to name but two types of work protected by copyright) can be deployed along with non-proprietary rights over confidential information (including trade secrets), to form a protective screen around intangible assets. Depending on the circumstances, all, some, one or perhaps none of these rights may be available when one person seeks to prevent information belonging to him from being disclosed or used without his permission by another. The questions most often raised (and those addressed in this paper) by business executives and those carrying out research or development concern the acquisition of proprietary and non-proprietary rights and the protection of these intangible assets.