This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. Learn more

LPC Law Notes Commercial and IP Notes

Copyright Notes

Updated Copyright Notes

Commercial and IP Notes

Commercial and IP

Approximately 100 pages

A collection of the best LPC Commercial and IP notes the director of Oxbridge Notes (an Oxford law graduate) could find after combing through twenty-nine LPC samples from outstanding students with the highest results in England and carefully evaluating each on accuracy, formatting, logical structure, spelling/grammar, conciseness and "wow-factor".

In short these are what we believe to be the strongest set of CLIP notes available in the UK this year. This collection of notes is fully updated fo...

Available here

The following is a more accessible plain text extract of the PDF sample above, taken from our Commercial and IP Notes. Due to the challenges of extracting text from PDFs, it will have odd formatting:

Copyright

Sources

  • Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1998 (‘CPDA’)

  • EU legislation

Aims

  • encourage and protect creative and original types

  • C is an unreg’d IP right

  • C does not give the owner a monopoly. A third party will only infringe if he has had access to the work or copied it or (in respect of secondary infringement) he knows or ought to have known he is dealing in infringed goods

Stage 1 - Subsistence and Validity

Types of C

  • s.1(1)(a) and s.3 Literary works - this has nothing to do w/literary merit or style and includes computer software and databases. Database defined v widely in s.3A

  • S.1(1)(a) and s.3 dramatic works. Includes dance and mime.

  • S.1(1)(a) and s.3 musical works. Nb. Tunes for a song will be musical works but the lyrics will have literary C in their own rights.

  • S.1(1)(a) and s.4 artistic works:

  • S.4(1) sets restricts scope of artistic works to 3 x categories:

  • S.4(1)(a) graphic works, photographs, sculptures and collages (irrespective of artistic merit)

  • S.4(1)(b) works of architecture (including models)

  • S.4(1)(c) Works Of Artistic Craftsmanship (‘WOAC’). Must have: some aesthetic appeal (‘be artistic’) and be made by a ‘craftsperson’. To be assessed from point of view of a 3rd party. Eg. Architectural drawings for Shard, Alexander McQueen’s dress sketches

  • Nb. S.4 is drafted v widely so ultimately @ court’s discretion as to whether a particular item can be protected

  • Ss.5A, 5B and 6 sound recordings, sometimes referred to as secondary works

  • S.1(1)(c) and s.8 typographical arrangement of published editions (must be published in book, newspaper or journal, can’t just be reprinted by someone)

  • Identify type of work s.1 [see above]

  1. Fixed?

  2. Original?

Fixation

  • Fixed s.3(2)?

  • No protection will be given to a literary, dramatic or musical work unless it has been recorded “in writing or otherwise”.

  • There is no fixation requirement for works which are recorded by their nature - eg. A painting, sculpture

Originality

  • Original s.1(1)(a)? usually assume on facts - usually a low threshold which has nothing to do w/creative spark or inventiveness - just that the work originated from author and not copied form anywhere else

  • Databases which have been singled out in s.3(2) as requiring a higher level of originality than other literary works . The way that the content has been selected or the arrangement of the components of the work must the artist’s own intellectual creation

  • Independent creation - C is not a monopoly right like a reg’d TM, it is possible (although not common) for two or more Cs to subsist independently in v similar works providing that one is not copied from another

  • Adaptations - defined in s.21(3) in relation to literary and musical works and includes: translations of works into different languages and into other forms eg. Dramatisation. Can be based on, or include elements from, pre-existing work w/o falling w/in this fairly narrow stat definition. Any such work has its own separate C to the extent that it is original

Author and duration

  • Authorship s.9/10? Usually creator s.9(1)

  • Duration s.12? Expires 70 yrs from end of calendar yr in which author dies s.12(2)

Exceptions:

  1. typographical layout of a published edition s.15 25 yrs from calendar yr in which edition was published

  2. Sound recordings s.13A and broadcasts s.14 - basic period of protection is 50 yrs from end of calendar yr of creation - not measured w/reference to author’s life

  3. Artistic works which have been exploited by an industrial process s.52 - period of C is reduced by 25 yrs. In exam, they try and trick you by saying C disappears, remember it doesn’t it’s just reduced. “Exploitation by industrial process” is defined as making more than 50 articles

Ownership

  • Ownership s.11?

  • First owner = author unless during course of e’ent then belongs to e’er

  • Those commissioning third parties will need the contract to deal w/ownership because CPDA is silent. They should obtain C by way of assignment in writing and signed by creator. Otherwise, creator is first owner.

Stage 2 - infringement

Infringement -

Look @ verb in exam q

  • can be primary or secondary

  • Primary = direct copying of C work

  • Secondary = dealing in infringing items or assisting their production

  • S.16(1) lists acts which amount to primary infringement

  • Ss.17-21 go on to provide (partial) definitions of and clarifications in relation to particular acts

  • Act must be w/o consent of owner of C

Most important restricted acts

  • Copying - s.16(1)(a) and s.17: copying means reproducing in any material form - this includes copying of individual frames from a film and making a photocopy of typographical arrangements of a published work

  • For artistic works only, infringement can occur from a dimensional shift copying. Eg. Making a sculpture by using drawings (2D) to make a 3D sculpture....

Buy the full version of these notes or essay plans and more in our Commercial and IP Notes.

More Commercial And Ip Samples