Quiz: What Do You Know About Intellectual Property?

The sections below set out some information which will help you with this quiz. The information refers to Australian law but it will still help you to answer the more generic questions included in this quiz.

The World Intellectual Property Organization website, USPTO website, US Copyright Office website and the UK Intellectual Property Office website have useful information about intellectual property which will help with this quiz.

In Australia, a trade mark is considered to be a badge of origin. It enables a proprietor of a business to distinguish the goods or services of the proprietor's business from the goods or services of another business.

In Australia, trade marks may be registered or unregistered. Registration of trade marks in Australia is regulated by the Trade Marks Act 1995 (Cth). Trade marks may be unregistered because they do not meet the registration requirements of the trade marks act or simply because the proprietor has failed to apply for registration of the trade mark.

Generally, registered trade marks are easier to protect than unregistered trade marks because the owner of a registered trade mark can bring an infringement action under the Act and rely on certain presumptions in the Act in relation to the effect of registration. Unregistered trade marks generally can only be protected by bringing an action for passing off or for breach of the statutory provisions which prohibit misleading or deceptive conduct. (Both of these are discussed in an upcoming lens.)

Trade marks are registered in respect of specified goods, services or both. The trade mark system divides goods and services into 45 classes (34 for goods and 11 for services). These classes reflect the international classification of goods and services. The trade mark registration specifies both the class and the goods or services within the class which the registration covers. In Australia, it is not possible to register a trade mark for all goods or services in a class unless the applicant or owner does in fact use the trade mark in respect of all of the goods and services included in the class.

Trade marks are a national right so if a business wants to expand outside Australia, the business will need to consider applying for trade mark registrations in the relevant countries.

In Australia, the ® symbol can only be used in respect of registered trade marks. It is an offence to use the symbol when a trade mark is not registered. The TM symbol is used for unregistered trade marks.

For more information about trade marks, see Protecting Trade Marks in Australia.

Copyright protects works that are creative and involve thought and skill. It protects the way in which an idea is expressed and not the idea itself. Copyright gives the owners of works protected by copyright the right to control the ways in which the work can be exploited.

For more information about copyright, see Australian Copyright Law.

Design rights protect the visual appearance of the whole or part of a product. There are two regimes for protecting designs: designs that are registered under the Designs Act 2003 (Cth) and protection under the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth).

The registered designs and copyright regimes provide protection for different types of uses of artistic works. Some designs may be eligible for protection under both the registered designs and copyright regimes. However, copyright protection ceases where a copyrighted work has been applied industrially and the disclosure of the design as a result of the industrial application will be sufficient to prevent registration of a design. Therefore, a person must carefully consider which regime will best suit the person's needs on the basis of the intended use of the artistic work.

For more information about designs, see An Outline of Australian Design Law.

Patents protect ideas and inventions. A patent may be granted in respect of a product or a process. A patent gives the owner the right to control the ways in which the invention covered by the patent can be exploited.

In Australia, there are two types of patent:
* the standard patent which is granted to an invention which meets the standards of inventiveness; and
* the innovation patent which is a patent granted to inventions that do not meet the inventive step required for a standard patent but which meet the lower standard innovative step requirement. It has a shorter period of protection and was introduced to encourage innovation in small businesses. Therefore, it is also useful to protect inventions which have a short life span in the market and which might be superseded by inventions in a short time frame.

For more information about patents, see An Outline of Australian Patent Law.

Plant Breeder's Rights are exclusive commercial rights to a registered plant variety. New or recently exploited plant varieties can be registered. A new variety is one which has not been sold with the breeder's consent. A recently exploited variety is one which been sold with the breeder's consent for up to 12 months in Australia and for overseas varieties this limit is up to four years ( with the exception of trees and vines in which a six year overseas prior sale limit is permitted).

For more information about plant variety rights, see Australian Plant Breeder's Rights.

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