Intellectual Property


IP Management

Part of ECU's mission is to ensure that the results of research are made available for public benefit. This is achieved by ensuring that inventions are developed into commercially useful products which both benefit the Community as well as generate income for the University.

The Office of Research & Innovation works closely with Researchers to provide guidance on Intellectual Property Management and Commercialisation. In addition ECU has established a comprehensive policy on all aspects of IP ownership, and protection. It clarifies the treatment of IP developed by staff and students in various circumstances, the importance of maintaining confidentiality and the ways in which commercialisation returns are shared with the inventors. All staff are bound by the Intellectual Property policy and are encouraged to familiarise themselves with it. An important aspect of the policy is the need to disclose technologies and research outcomes with commercial potential. This should be done by filling in the Invention Disclosure Form.

Intellectual Property can have significant benefits for individuals, research groups, the university and the community including:


What is Intellectual Property?

"Products of the mind" "... the rights of creative workers in literacy, artistic, industrial and scientific fields which can be protected either by copyright, trademarks, patents, etc." Macquarie Dictionary

Intellectual property refers to creations of the mind: inventions, literary and artistic works, and symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce.

Intellectual property is divided into two categories:

Intellectual property encompasses not only mainstream intellectual property fields, including patents, trademarks and designs, but also other intellectual property areas, including copyright, circuit layouts, plant variety rights and confidential information.

Types of Intellectual Property

What is a Patent?


Patentability


To be patentable, your invention must satisfy three criteria

1. Novelty
Your invention must not have been disclosed to the public. Further, to preserve worldwide patent rights, your invention must not have been disclosed to the public before the filing date of the application by the inventors.

2. Non-obviousness
Your invention must be a new combination of features and/or give new and non-obvious results compared to known approaches. Ordinary differences in size, materials or other obvious modifications are generally not patentable.

3. Utility
Your invention must be useful.

Parts of a patent


Types of Patents


1. Provisional
A provisional patent application can be an effective vehicle for securing patent protection. A provisional application is typically a simplified document that requires a specification and drawings, optionally with claims. A full patent application filed within 12 months may claim the benefit of the filing date of the provisional application. When patent budgets are limited, or a premature disclosure cannot be avoided, or market validation is desired before defining the scope of the patent, provisional patent applications can be quite useful.

2. Full/Complete application
A complete application is necessary to have a patent granted and is filed 12 months after the Provisional Patent. The complete application may or may not be preceded by a provisional application. In Australia there are two types of Complete applications, a Standard Patent application which gives long-term protection and control for up to 20 years. And secondly an Innovation patent which is designed to protect inventions that are not sufficiently inventive to meet the threshold for Standard Patents. This is a relatively fast, inexpensive protection option lasting 8 years.

3. Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT)
This is a useful way to apply for Patents in a number of different countries simultaneously. Having filed an international application, you will receive an International Search Report and a Written Opinion of an International Searching Authority (equivalent to a written opinion under preliminary examination. These tell you if there are any inventions that are similar to yours and they will help you to refine your patent strategy. 'Entering the national phase' is when you ask for your international application to proceed separately in any or all of the countries which are party to the PCT. You have up to 31 months after your priority date to enter the national phase in Australia.

Patent Application Process



Costs and Time-Frame of Patents



What is a Trademark?


A trademark is a sign used to distinguish the goods or services of one person or business concern from another. Trademarks, sometimes known as brands, are defined in the Trade Marks Act to include a letter, word, name, signature, numeral device, brand, heading, label, ticket, aspect of packaging, shape, colour, sound or scent. This broadened definition of trade marks will allow registration of the shape of a Coca Cola bottle as a trade mark or other distinctive packaging styles and shapes. A distinctive shape of a bar of soap, an item of confectionery or even the pattern of a shoe sole may now be registered as trade marks. Trade marks may be registered in any one or more of thirty four classes of goods or eight classes of services.
Registration
A registered trade mark is infringed by the unauthorised use by others of a substantially identical or deceptively similar trade mark on goods of the same general description. Registered "famous" trade marks can be infringed by use on almost any goods or services.

What is a Design?


When features of shape, configuration, pattern or ornamentation are applied to an article to give it a particular appearance those features which are judged by the eye in the finished article are the "design" of the article. A design registration is limited only to the appearance of the article and does not offer any protection for its method of construction or operation. Although the same features of shape of say a dolphin may be applied to an item of jewellery and a drinks container, these are different articles which require separate registrations. In some cases, a single design registration may be obtained for a "set" of articles such as cutlery or crockery.
Application for Registration
An application to register a design must include representations showing all features of the design. The representations may be line drawings or quality photographs and apart from plan and elevational views, should also show perspective views.

Copyright


Copyright protects the original form of expression of ideas from unauthorised copying. It is the form of expression, which is protected, and not the actual ideas. Protection is only in respect of substantial or complete copying. Protection is afforded to literary, dramatic and musical works. The copyright owner has exclusive rights, including the reproduction, publication, performance, broadcast, transmission or adoption of the work. Copyright gives protection to those works for a limited time only. In the case of published works, copyright continues to subsist for 50 years after the death of the author. In the case of unpublished works, copyright subsists for 50 years after the date of the first publication of the work.

ECU, its staff and students are subject to Australian Copyright Law. For more information click on: G&PS Copyright - Edith Cowan University

Circuit Layout


The Circuit Layouts Act is a very specific piece of legislation aimed at providing protection to owners against the copying of their circuit layout. A circuit layout is a representation in any material form of a 3D location of the elements and interconnections of an integrated circuit. Owners have exclusive rights, including the copying and exploitation of the layout. However, innocent commercial exploitation and reverse engineering are not an infringement under the Circuit Layouts Act. The duration of protection is for a term of 10 years from when the layout was made, or 10 years after first commercial exploitation.

Publication and Disclosure


The term 'Disclosure' not only includes conventional publication in a journal or conference proceedings, but also refers to anything in the 'public domain'. This includes any communication medium that can be read, spoken and/or reviewed by the general public such as internet, radio, television, written publications, email, presentation slides, and posters at conferences or talks, workshops or lectures and advertisements.

Confidential information


Confidential information is commercially valuable knowledge not publicly available. It includes trade secrets and technical know-how. The receiver of confidential information owes a duty of confidence to the communicator of the information.

Business Names


A business name is the name under which a person, partnership or company conducts business. Registration of a business name is compulsory under state or territory legislation.

ECU IP Policy


To view current ECU policy on IP click on: http://www.ecu.edu.au/GPPS/policies_db/library/tools/download_policy.php?rec_id=0000000077&type=txt

Non-Disclosure Agreement


Never disclose confidential information without first getting advice from the Research Commercialisation Office. If a Non-Disclosure Agreement is required this will be prepared by the Research Commercialisation Office. To view a copy of our standard template click on: shortformNDA.doc

Material Transfer Agreement


This section is still under construction