Discussion 1 Gather into groups of 3-4 for 15 minutes With reference to the BBC Glass Wall case study, discuss the following question and present three areas that you have considered and how they relate to the project: What were the BBC’s business requirements for the re-design and how were they met? Consider –Audience –Owners –Aim

Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)

IPR – What are they? Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) are a set of rights protected in law with regard to assets/property that are not physical but which are clearly tangible and derived from intellectual activity. IP can be protected in several ways some of which are copyright, patent, trade marks, designs and licences.

IPR - Patents Patents: A patent for an invention is granted by government to the inventor, giving the inventor the right for a limited period to stop others from making, using or selling the invention without the permission of the inventor. When a patent is granted, the invention becomes the property of the inventor, which - like any other form of property or business asset - can be bought, sold, rented or hired.

Patents Patents are territorial rights; UK Patent will only give the holder rights within the United Kingdom and rights to stop others from importing the patented products into the United Kingdom.

IPR - Copyright Copyright: Copyright comes into effect immediately, as soon as something that can be protected is created and "fixed" in some way, e.g. on paper, on film, via sound recording, as an electronic record on the internet, etc.

IPR – Copyright 2 Before you go any further you need to know that there is no official register for copyright. It is an unregistered right (unlike patents, registered designs or trade marks). So, there is no official action to take, (no application to make, forms to fill in or fees to pay).

IPR – Areas to consider Designs: A registered design is a monopoly right for the appearance of the whole or a part of a product resulting from the features of, in particular, the: –lines –contours –colours –shape –texture –materials –of the product or its ornamentation.

IPR – Trade Marks Trade marks: A trade mark is any sign which can distinguish the goods and services of one trader from those of another. A sign includes, for example, words, logos, pictures, or a combination of these. Basically, a trade mark is a badge of origin, used so that customers can recognise the product of a particular trader.

IPR – Trade Marks 2 To be acceptable for registration your trade mark must be: –distinctive for the goods or services which you are applying to register it for, AND –not deceptive, or contrary to law or morality, AND –not similar or identical to any earlier marks for the same or similar goods or services.

IPR - Licence Licence: in this context its simply a way of allowing third parties to use an asset defined as intellectual property with the permission of the owner of the asset, often in return for a fee.

IPR and Digital Media Areas to be aware of Copyright: –Web/DM code as literary work, the visual display as graphic work, tunes as music work. –Trade-marks/logos of publishers, developer’s platforms, operators logos, specific characters or objects.

IPR and Digital Media 2 Patents: –could include: –algorithms, user interfaces/menus, edit/control functions, compiling techniques, programme languages, utilities etc. Trade secrets: –could include source code, machine code, firmware, concepts, ideas, storylines, tools etc.

IPR Law IPR regulation is enshrined in law much of our law is now derived from EU directives an important directive is 91/250/EEC this is enshrined in UK law as Statutory Instrument (SI) 1992/3233 Protection of Computer Programs

IPR Law 2 There is other legislation and a more recent new proposed directive on the Patentability of Computer Related Inventions, this would include software. Another more general copyright directive is 93/98/EEC enshrined in UK law as 1995/3297.

IPR – good site Websites: A good general website for this topic is: another website with regard to the web industry is the And

Discussion 2 Gather into groups of 3-4 for 10 minutes Discuss the following and present three areas that you have considered and how they relate to a project: What legal issues of IPR may effect a website/DVD or other Digital Media projects? Consider –Media used –Ownership and copyrights –Code

Next week Boom to bust – The Dot.coms, Dot Bombs and lessons learned Review for next week

Websites on the Dot com era Historical perspective – A link to a chapter from a good book on the subject – h6.pdf h6.pdfhttp:// h6.pdf The New media & Society archive at

Phishing/Hacking Video on DDS Good article at y/0,16376, ,00.html y/0,16376, ,00.html