WLUG Meeting - 25 July 2005

Location: University of Waikato, LitB
Time: 7pm

Denise Tyrer-Harding of Pipers spoke to the WLUG about IntellectualProperty within NewZealand.

Denise outlined the 4 major forms of Intellectual Property protection:

• Copyright
• Design Registration
• Patents
• Trademarks

Copyright in New Zealand

• Free and automatic to the creator.
• Need evidence that you're the creator - "© year" on the work, and a "development record" is useful
• Does not protect against someone else independently coming up with the same thing.
• Copyright given to an entity - an individual person, a company, or an incorporated society.
• industrial copyright - 16 years from the date of the 50th model created from the design.
• written copyright - 100 years from the date of the creator's death

Design Registration

For hardware; lasts 15 years. Requires application to the Patent Office. This covers how a device looks, not its functionality.

Patents

Until recently, software could not be patented in NZ at all. The key clause is "method of manufacture", and this has been re-interpreted to (sometimes?) include software when combined with hardware. In NZ, patents last for 20 years.

Trademark

• For product identification
• not "lauditary" - ie, generally can't trademark names, placenames, sports clubs, etc.
• Trademarks not limited to words - the Harley-Davidson "sound", specific colours (eg the yellow used by the yellow pages or by MacDonalds?).
• Common law trademark is based on local reputation, and does not require registration.
• Registered trademark is national.

(to be completed)