Trade Marks, Copyright & Design
A trade mark is a badge of origin. It’s the sign that a business puts forward to distinguish its goods or services from those of its competitors. While the definition of what a sign can be has become so broad as to include sounds and smells, the core of trade mark law remains. It is how traders create a brand and it is how traders protect their brand. If you have a logo or a brand name and it hasn’t been registered, you are running a very serious risk.
Copyright protects the copyright owner’s work from being copied by others. If you have written a song, drawn up architectural plans, or created a computer program then those works are copyright protected. We can assist you with enforcing your rights. If you have made use of someone else’s work or even just “cut and pasted” some text from a website then you may have breached the copyright owner’s copyright.
Design is the appearance of a product. It is not a trade mark, which is a sign. It is not the product itself. It is the shape, colour and dimensions that a design owner’s product has. If you have designed a product then you can register and protect that design. If you have copied the appearance of a product whose design has been registered then you risk being sued in respect of that breach.
The law relating to the internet can be anything from the licensing of copyright protected material, a criminal offence of assault, or the administration of servers “in the cloud”. The law relating to the internet includes media law but also goes beyond it. The advent of ecommerce, for example, has revolutionized even the way traditional industries do business.
The more our clients live their lives and conduct their business online the more they require our assistance and advice with those lives and businesses. We have developed an expertise in this area and we would be pleased to share the benefit of that expertise with you.
Media law includes defamation but also considers a range of other laws like contempt of court, hate speech and the developing right to privacy in Australia. It is an area of practice that was once strictly relevant for mass media outlets like radio stations, publishers and television broadcasters but that is becoming increasing relevant for private people and small business.
If you have set up a Twitter account, are considering writing a letter to the editor, or even thinking about posting something up on the corkboard at your local club you may wish to consider the media law implications of doing so. We have experience on “both sides” of the fence in media law, as publishers and as lawyers offering our clients advice and assistance.