Intellectual Property Law

ntellectual Property Law

Every business has some kind of valuable intellectual property (IP) that differentiates it from its competitors. Protecting and managing your IP is critical, especially for small and medium-sized businesses. Whether you are a restaurant with unique recipes, an online retail brand offering original designs, or a creator with a new invention, your IP is the core of your business and one of your key assets. 

It is important to understand your IP rights for many reasons. To protect some forms of IP, you may need to formally register them. Without IP protection, you may risk someone else copying your product or design without your permission. If you don’t check whether your IP has protection you may also risk infringing on someone else’s IP without your knowledge, which may lead to future disputes. 

Why Elamine Lawyers

Our team of experienced IP lawyers can help you understand the different types of IP that exist and guide you through the process of protecting your IP assets. We have expertise in advising small and medium businesses as well as individual creators and artists. Here are the areas of intellectual property services that we can help you with.

Copyright

Copyright is a type of IP that is based on your creative skill, which may be in writing, images, music or video. It is important to note that copyright protects the original form of the idea and not the idea itself. It gives you exclusive economic and non-economic (moral) rights over the expression of the idea. While copyright protection is free and automatic in Australia under the Copyright Act 1968, we can give you advice on a range of issues including:

• Whether your work qualifies for copyright

• How to deal with someone who may have infringed your copyright

• If you have possibly infringed someone else’s copyright during the course of business. 

Design

Design refers to the visual appearance of your product like its shape, configuration, pattern, or ornamentation. A design registration protects the visual aspect of your product, but not the way it works. Registering a design gives you exclusive rights to commercially use, license, or sell the it for five years, after which it must be renewed. If your design is new and distinctive, you can also have it certified. Our IP lawyers can guide you on

• Whether your design qualifies for registration

• How to register your design

• Whether your design should be certified 

Trademark

A trademark is what distinguishes your goods or services from those of another business. It can include logos, words, letters, numbers, shapes, images, jingles, and more. This is not the same as your business or domain name, they must be registered separately. Your trademark is a valuable marketing tool and registering it gives you exclusive rights to use, license, and sell it. At Elamine Lawyers, we can advise you on:

• Whether your trademark can be registered 

• How to register your trademark

• What to do if someone has infringed your trademark rights

Patent

A patent is a legally enforceable right that lets you use a new invention for commercial use. Patents can be granted to a device, substance, or process and protects how the invention works. We recommend that you do not publicly disclose or discuss your patent before its registered because this can affect whether your patent application. Our experienced patent lawyers can help you increase the chances of success of your application by:

• Giving you advice on how to register your patent

• Helping you prepare your application for a paten

• Advising you on what you can (and what you can’t say) about your invention before your patent is registered