1. Intellectual Property and the Ownership of Research
Professor Fiona Macmillan

2. Scope of Intellectual Property Protection
Copyright: literary works, dramatic works, musical works, artistic works, films, sound recordings, broadcasts, published editions, performances
Patents: “inventions” displaying novelty, inventive step and industrial applicability
Confidential information: eg trade secrets, technical information

3. Key Features of Intellectual Property
Limited monopoly
Intangible property
Non-rivalrous and non-wasteable qualities
Ownership
Assignment and licensing

4. Introduction to Copyright and Moral Rights
Subject matter: literary works (including table and compilations and computer programmes, cf Database Right), dramatic works, musical works, artistic works (including drawings, diagrammes, plans, buildings, works of artistic craftsmanship), films, sound recordings, broadcasts, published editions, performances

5. Automatic protection: no registration
Idea/expression dichotomy
Relevance of originality
Independent creation

6. Ownership: role of the author; contractual variation; works produced in the course of employment
Duration: usually the author’s life plus 70 years; 50 years for computer-generated works, sound recordings and broadcasts; 25 years for typographical arrangements of published editions

7. Infringement: Doing, without the license of the owner, any of the following acts in relation to a substantial part of the work:
copying
issuing to the public
renting or lending to the public
performing in public
broadcasting
making available to the public
adapting (including translating)

8. Exceptions/defences: eg
Exceptions/defences: eg. fair dealing for research and private study; fair dealing for criticism and review
Interface between breach of copyright and plagiarism?

9. Moral Rights
Range of rights: right of paternity, right of integrity, right against false attribution, right of privacy in certain photographs and films
Owned by the author and may be waived but not assigned
Usually last for the period of copyright protection

10. Patents
Scope of right: stops others from making, using, selling, distributing the invention or the means of making the invention for 20 years from the date of grant
Registered right: expense; delay; regime for medical applications

11. Right to apply for registration: inventor; inventor’s employer
Requirements for registrability:
novelty
inventive step
capacity for industrial application
not specifically excluded from patentability: note especially EU Directive 98/44 on legal protection of biological inventions

12. Specification and claims: full disclosure requirement
Infringement: relationship to claims; signpost rather than fencepost approach to construction; colourable evasions of the monopoly right are avoided
Defences:
private non-commercial use
experimental use

13. Breach of confidence Elements:
information with the quality of confidence
conveyed in circumstances importing an obligation of confidence
unauthorised use

14. Birkbeck’s Intellectual Property Code (2005)
Applies to staff and students
Disclaims rights in copyright material, subject to a non-exclusive royalty free right to use/adapt teaching materials for teaching or for commercial purposes
Imposes strict regime with respect to attribution of authorship in relation to teaching materials

15. College has first right of refusal in relation to registered rights
Establishes a scheme for the distribution of benefits from commercial exploitation:
£000
Generator
College
School
<50
75%
15%
10%
>50
50%
25%