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Guide

Duration of intellectual property protection

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Archived
This content was archived in March 2017

About this guide

  • Published: 6 June 2014
  • Updated: 6 June 2014

View full guide as a single page

Contents

Intellectual property law
  • The significance of intellectual property law for FE and HE
  • Copyright
  • Patents
    • Frequently asked questions about patents
  • Designs
  • Trade marks
  • Intellectual property ownership - who owns what?
  • Database right
  • Duration of intellectual property protection
  • Infringement of intellectual property rights
  • Enforcement of intellectual property rights
  • Useful links

Copyright

The duration of copyright is dependent on the type of work in question.

Literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works

The lifetime of the author plus a period of seventy years from the end of the year in which the author dies.

Computer generated works

Fifty years from end of the year in which the work was made.  A work is deemed to be computer generated where there is “no human author”.

Films

Seventy years from the end of the year in which the death occurs of the last to die of the principal director, author of the screenplay. author of the dialogue or composer of the music specially created for and used in the film.

Sound recordings

Fifty years from the end of year in which it was made or, if published or made available to the public during this time, 70 years from the end of the year in which it is first published or made available to the public.

Broadcasts

Fifty years from the end of the year the broadcast was made.

Typographical arrangement of published editions

Twenty five years from the end of the year of first publication.

Patents

A patent is an intellectual property right, granted to an inventor by a country’s government as a territorial right usually for twenty years. As long as renewal fees are paid every year, a UK patent has a life of twenty years and provides protection throughout the UK, but no further.

Designs

By registering a design the proprietor obtains the exclusive right for twenty five years. A United Kingdom or community design registration may last for up to twenty five years, but has to be renewed every five years.

UK unregistered design right has a duration of ten years from the end of the year of first sale of the article, subject to an overall maximum of fifteen years.

Community unregistered design right lasts for three years from the date on which the design is first made available to the public in the EU.

Trade marks

Trade mark registration can be renewed indefinitely. However, to keep a trade mark in force, it must be renewed on the tenth anniversary of the filing date and every ten years after that.

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