Protecting Your Ideas

© Intellectual Property Office

The Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) provide legal protection for ideas and inventions, giving creative artists, inventors and businesses control over how their Intellectual Property (IP) assets are used. There can be costs involved in protecting your IP, depending on the type. There are 4 main types of IPRs – patents, designs, trademarks and copyright

© Intellectual Property Office

A patent protects new inventions and covers how things work, what they do, how they do it, what they are made of and how they are made. A patent gives the owner the right to prevent others from making, using, importing or selling the invention without permission. Find out more about patents.

© Intellectual Property Office

Registered designs protect the appearance of an object in the geographical region in which you register it. The visual appearance of an object can include colour, shape, pattern, texture, material, etc. Registered designs can include clothes, puzzles, furniture and medical equipment. Find out more about design rights.

© Intellectual Property Office

Trade marks, broadly speaking, indicate the origin of goods or services. Traditionally this was done by using words, logos, pictures or a combination of these elements, now trade marks can also be sounds and/or gestures. Shapes of products can also be registered. Find out more about trade marks.

© Intellectual Property Office

Copyright is protection for literary or artistic works. Copyright does not protect ideas for works. It is only when the work has been captured (fixed) in hard copy that it is protected. For example an idea for a book cannot be protected, but once you have written the manuscript then copyright applies. Find out more about copyright.