Lecture notes
Intellectual Property Law – Notes
Detailed revision notes on topics including copyright, trademarks and passing off.
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IntroductionHuman genius is the source of all works of art and invention.
These works are the guarantee of a life worthy of men and women.
It is duty of the State to ensure with diligence the protection of the arts and inventions.
About intellectual property
These noble sentiments, recorded in the fabric of the World Intellectual Property
Organisation (WIPO) headquarters in Geneva, will strike a chord with most of you. You may
agree with them, and yet, without the slightest hesitation, you may from time to time rip
copies of films or download music from the Internet without regard to the rights of the
creators of these works. Most people are both owners of intellectual property and users of
the intellectual property of others; hence, intellectual property law reflects the tension
between the rights of protection afforded to the products of creative endeavours and the
need for users to access those products, and attempts to balance their interests. ‘Is the
balance right?’ is a question you might usefully ask from time to time during this course.
That said, there is more to intellectual property than creations of the human mind. Is there
any inventiveness and creativity in using ‘Dyson’ to designate vacuum cleaners made by a
factory owned by James Dyson? Similarly, what about the term ‘Evian’? This designates
mineral water coming from several sources near Évian-les-Bains, on the south shore of Lake
Geneva: is this not just geography? Yet today, Evian is owned by Danone Group, a French
multinational company, who use the Evian name for a line of organic skin care products as
well as a luxury resort in France. Business reputation is often associated with a trade name –
which can be protected as intellectual property just as literary creations and inventions can.
Intellectual property
Is a collective term used to refer to a number of rights the most significant of which are:
• Patents – for new products or processes
• Trade marks – brands, logos, slogans
• Copyright – for original musical, literary and artistic works
• Industrial designs – the outward appearance of products.
Other rights include database rights, performers’ rights (in live performances), plant variety
rights, and so on. Some of these are quite new, but the core group can be dated back a long
way. The grant of patents (initially by the Crown) can be dated back to the 15th century in
England. Statutory regulation was introduced in the mid-19th century after Charles Dickens
exposed the need for reform, Charles Dickens, ‘A Poor Man's Tale of a Patent’ Household
Words (Volume II, Magazine No. 30, 19 October 1850) 73. Copyright began under the
Statute of Anne in 1709/10, while design protection originated in the first half of the 19th
century, with the advent of mass production. Trade marks themselves have been around
for millennia, but judicial intervention to protect mark-owners against imitation of their
marks can be dated back to the 16th century; a statutory trade mark registration system
was only introduced in the UK in 1875.
In this module, we shall concentrate primarily on trade marks and the related tort of passing
off, the law of copyright and patents. Other intellectual property rights will be mentioned in
passing.
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