Question

Describe Australia's regulations to protect intellectual property, such as brand names, copyrights patents, software, music, videos?

Answer 1

Q. Describe australia's regulations to protect intellectual property , such as brand names, copyright patents , softwares, music, video's?

Australia’s IP laws provide a legal framework to protect your innovative and creative ideas and designs. The legal protection of IP rights provides designers, artists, business people, entrepreneurs and inventors with the exclusive right to use and control, and therefore profit from, their intellectual and creative work.

IP Australia is the Australian Government agency responsible for administering patent, design, trade mark and plant breeder’s rights. By granting these rights, and contributing to the improvement of Australian and international IP systems, IP Australia is supporting Australia’s economic development.

The difference between trade marks, business, company and domain names sometimes causes confusion. Registration of a business, company or domain name does not in itself give you any proprietary rights - only a trade mark can give you that kind of protection.

A company name identifies a legally incorporated entity. If a company wishes to trade using a name other than its registered company name, it must register that trading name as a business name. Domain names are site addresses on the internet. Registration of a domain name gives you exclusive use of that Internet address but only for an agreed period of time.

In Australia, Copyright protection is free and automatic under the Copyright Act 1968 , providing that the work in question falls within one of the categories of protected material. The Act does not require the completion of any formalities, such as registration or the payment of fees, in order to obtain protection in Australia. Although copyright protection in Australia is not dependent upon formal notice, it is best practice and advisable for copyright owners to place a copyright notice in a prominent place on their work.

WHAT IS A PATENT?

A device, substance, method, process that is new , intentive, and useful can be patented.

patents give protection to new products ,methods or processes.patents have the potential to be exclusively secure long-term commercial gain

In Australia, there are two types of patents: a standard patent that gives protection for up to 20 years or an innovation patent that gives protection for up to eight years.

OBLIGATIONS AND RESPONSIBILITIES :

1.PROTECTION :

Although IP Australia receives, processes applications and maintains registers of trade marks, patents, design and plant breeder’s rights varieties it is not responsible for policing the rights of owners of the IP. Fundamentally, registered IP is a property right and as with all property it is the responsibility of the owner to maintain and defend that right.

2.EXTENT OF YOUR RIGHTS:

Your registered IP provides you with a legal monopoly on the matter only covered by the registration. Regular audits of your IP can assist you in ensuring that your rights protect you for the goods and services that you manufacture or sell.

3.AVOIDING INFRINGEMENTS:

Infringement can be a costly process, so take steps to avoid having to take action. Some measures can be relatively simple to follow. Before using or applying to register IP, it is wise to search first. Searching can help you understand the rights of others and consequently take steps to avoid infringing on those rights.

PATENTS FOR SOFTWARE:

Computer technology exists in components of many everyday goods and services. Within computers is a set of instructions, known as computer programs or software, which enable the computer to function.

Determining which patents apply specifically to software is not straightforward, as software can be used in a range of applications and inventions. One approach to identify software patents is to use the International Patent Classification (IPC) (ACIP 2003a; McEneiry 2012) as an imperfect proxy. Using this approach for Australian patent data (figure 9.1) reveals that:

• most applications for software patents are filed from the United States

• most applications filed by Australian firms are used in the computer system design and scientific and manufacturing industries

• software patent application growth was strong through the 2010s, but has since been volatile, which is likely to be in response to various legal rulings abroad.