Intellectual property
This lecture was all about learning to protect yourself s a designer, protect your work and your ideas. I learned a lot about the legal side of design which I wasn’t aware off or really thought of before this lecture. I discuss some of the main points Daniel mentioned below.
What is IP ?
Anything original that anyone creates is their intellectual property if it is protected by the law. Protecting ideas – this idea could be anything – drawing a picture / naming a brand – you came up with it ! Until you sell you in onto the client you can listens your property (subscription ) not the whole thing however, if you are an employee (like I will be on my placement year next year ) the designs I create during that time are automatically my employers intellectual property. This is known as a work for hire arrangement.
Copyright
Copyrights take into account things that are artistic/ literary works ( books/ films/ websites ) – content if you create any piece of work that is your copyright providing it is not copied – your OWN ideas and work and it is original.
how do I prove this?
The earliest claim to the work – date stamp it (post yourself the piece of work in the mail and don’t open the envelope to prove it is yours.)
Another way to prove something is yours is computer files are date stamps – keep iterations – show your process of all fo the different versions – a version history.
Patents
Daniel talked about patents and how they are for products. Patents are used to protect innovations, inventions and new technical solutions to existing difficulties and it takes years to get one of these- a very lengthy process.
Trade mark
Trademarks are for brands, they distinguish an individual TM company’s goods and services from another. A good example of this is the Nintendo Switch as it is a brand of Nintendo.
Registered trademark
If a company want to protect something as best they can get a registered trademark, this provides additional legal benefits. An example of this is Cocacola.
What is an NDA
An NDA is a contract through which various parties agree not to disclose information covered by the agreement. This creates a confidential relationship between the parties, typically to protect any type of confidential, proprietary information or trade secrets that aren’t in the public domain. Daniel raised a great point within this section of the lecture that is someone won’t sign as a designer I need to walk away…
Reflection
This lecture was a lot to take in and if I’m being completely honest most of it went over my head! It was a lot of legal talk and words and terms that I haven’t heard of before and I wasn’t quite sure of what they meant. It is really important though as a designer to know how to protect yourself and your work and this was a good lecture to sit and listen to. I think that for the most part I will need to look over this lecture again and again to try to fully understand it but I am a beginner after all!