Week 7 Intellectual Property Rights

Professional Practices
CS 625
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Week 7 Topic: Intellectual Property Rights
 Introduction
 Confidential Information
 Patents
 Copyright
 Acts permitted in relation to copyright
 Remedies for breach of Copyright
 Plagiarism

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Introduction
 Intellectual property rights are often the most valuable assets
owned, used and developed by a software house.
 Intellectual property rights include:
 Confidential information
 Patents
 trade marks
 Designs
 Copyrights protecting computer programs

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Introduction (continued)
 They protect information stored by electronic means and all of the

paperwork which accompanies a program, such as the user manual, plus
any multimedia packages and most items on the Web.
 Great care should be taken to protect, exploit and enforce intellectual
property

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 The name under which a product is sold may be registered as a trade mark
 the hardware or a process used in its manufacture may be protected by a patent
 the look of the product may be registered in the Designs Registry
 software can be protected by copyright
 the know-how which goes into the development of the product may be protected as confidential
information

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 Unauthorized use of intellectual property can be stopped by injunction and damages may be
sought for infringement of these rights
 The law is constantly changing with technological advance
 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) concerned the protection of intellectual
property rights in the face of widespread piracy of software products

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Confidential Information
 Information “which is not public property and public knowledge”
 Any category of information, from personal confidences, to trade secrets and

sensitive government information, any or all of which a computer scientist might
handle in the course of his or her work, or all or any of which a firm may want to
protect against unauthorized use or disclosure by others
 Information will be protected only if it is confidential. Non-confidential information,

unless protected, e.g. by copyright or a patent is deemed to be in the public domain
and can be used by anyone.

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Confidential Information
 Three conditions must be satisfied before an action for breach of confidence can succeed:
 the information must be confidential
 the information must have been disclosed in circumstances which give rise to an obligation of confidence
 there must be an actual or anticipated unauthorized use or disclosure of the information

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Patents
 A government authority conferring a right or title for a set period, especially the
sole right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention
 A patent gives to an inventor a monopoly in an invention. This means that the

inventor is given the exclusive right to use or exploit the invention for a defined
period

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Patents
 The monopoly granted by patent law is so strong, that the owner of a patent
may even exclude independent inventors from the market
 The better the patent and the more commercially desirable the
breakthrough, the more likely it is to be challenged. For example, if
competitors can produce a similar product or process, which is not covered
by the patent, they will be free to market it and to erode the commercial
advantage of the patentee. If they can prove that the subject matter of the
patent has been used or disclosed before, they can invalidate the patent

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Patents
 Patent Act merely sets out a number of criteria which must be satisfied before an invention can be patented
 a patent may only be granted if:
 the invention is new
 it involves an inventive step
 it is capable of industrial application
 the subject matter of the invention does not fall within an excluded class

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Patents
 It is possible to patent something which is more than just a program—
something which can be called, for simplicity, a “program plus”
 A computer program is not excluded from patentability if it produced, or is
capable of producing, a further technical effect beyond the normal physical
interaction between software and hardware, i.e. it is potentially patentable if
it makes something else do something.

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Copyright
 The exclusive legal right, given to an originator or an assignee to print, publish, perform material, and to
authorize others to do the same
 Copyright protects more items generated by businesses or by individuals than any other aspect of
intellectual property law
 It can protect business letters, manuals, diagrams, computer programs
 Copyright owners face the specter of unlimited piracy through

uncontrolled copying with the advent of internet

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Copyright
 What we will probably see over the next few years are stronger
laws, more rights for copyright owners, widespread licensing schemes and greater use of technical anti-piracy
or copy-monitoring devices and electronic rights management systems
 Copyright law gives six exclusive rights to the owner of copyright:
 copy the work
 issue copies to the public

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Copyright
 rent or lend the work to the public
 perform, play or show the work in public
 broadcast the work or include it in a cable programmed service
 make an adaptation of the work or to do any of the above with an adaptation
 The rights apply equally to published and to unpublished works

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Acts permitted in relation to copyright
 Some acts are permitted under the 1988 Act, even though they would otherwise amount to breach of copyright.
 Fair dealing
 Making back-up copies of computer programs
 Transfers of works in electronic form
 De-compilation for the purpose of interoperability
 Error correction
 Databases

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Remedies for breach of copyright
 A copyright owner has all the usual civil remedies of search, injunction, damages
and an action for an account of profits made in breach of copyright
 If it is shown that at the time of the infringement of copyright the defendant did not
know and had no reason to believe that
copyright subsisted in the work, then the plaintiff is not entitled to damages against
the defendant

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Remedies for breach of copyright
 A copyright owner is also given an important power to enter

premises without using force in order to seize infringing copies,
or articles specifically designed or adapted for making copies

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Plagiarism
 the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing
them off as one's own.
 All of the following are considered plagiarism:
 turning in someone else's work as your own
 copying words or ideas from someone else without giving

credit
 failing to put a quotation in quotation marks

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Plagiarism (continued)
 giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation
 changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source

without giving credit
 for a computer program changing variable names only, or not
changing the structure or flow of a program

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Thank you!

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Professional Practices

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 Acts permitted in relation to copyright

 Remedies for breach of Copyright

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 Copyrights protecting computer programs

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 They protect information stored by electronic means and all of the

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 the hardware or a process used in its manufacture may be protected by a patent

 the look of the product may be registered in the Designs Registry

 software can be protected by copyright

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 Any category of information, from personal confidences, to trade secrets and

 Information will be protected only if it is confidential. Non-confidential information,

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 the information must be confidential

 there must be an actual or anticipated unauthorized use or disclosure of the information

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 A patent gives to an inventor a monopoly in an invention. This means that the

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 a patent may only be granted if:

 the invention is new

 it involves an inventive step

 it is capable of industrial application

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 Copyright owners face the specter of unlimited piracy through

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 Copyright law gives six exclusive rights to the owner of copyright:

 copy the work

 issue copies to the public

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 perform, play or show the work in public

 broadcast the work or include it in a cable programmed service

 make an adaptation of the work or to do any of the above with an adaptation

 The rights apply equally to published and to unpublished works

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 Making back-up copies of computer programs

 Transfers of works in electronic form

 De-compilation for the purpose of interoperability

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 A copyright owner is also given an important power to enter

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 turning in someone else's work as your own

 copying words or ideas from someone else without giving

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 giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation

 changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source

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