Watermark

Once you have actually been granted a patent, you can mark your product with terms such as "patent" or "patented" (eg "Australian patent 2000123456").

13. Can I get a patent for my computer software?

• Australia is one of the few countries that does grant patents for computer software. It is also the case that computer software is protectable by copyright in Australia. Copyright can protect against copying (in any medium) either the source code or the executable code of computer software. However copyright does protect only against "copying". Copyright cannot protect underlying working principles and it is unlikely that copyright is useful to prevent other people from independently developing software that has the same functionality as your software has.

14. What markings do I have to put on my book/instruction manual/drawings/plans to make it/them copyright?

• Copyright protection comes into being automatically when a copyrightable work is produced in Australia. However a few foreign countries require a special form of marking for that Australian copyright to be extended to those countries. The form of marking is the International copyright symbol of a letter C within a circle followed by the first date of publication of the work followed by the name of the copyright owner.

15. My product has been on the market since …(insert date) … can I get a patent?

• We always recommend applying for patent protection before putting any product on the market. Although the Australian law was changed in 2002 to allow the patenting of an invention which was disclosed less than 12 months before the application date, most foreign countries do not have such "grace periods" and so putting an invention on the market before applying for a patent will, in many cases, also prevent the grant of patents in overseas countries.

16. My employee/contractor/consultant has made an invention/design/written a manual - who owns the rights to it?

• The ownership of copyright material depends on whether the author was an employee differs from the situation where the author was an independent contractor or consultant. The ownership of copyright also depends on the particular form of product. The law on ownership on such intellectual property also varies from country to country and can be markably different from the situation in Australia. We always recommend that questions of ownership of intellectual property that is likely to be developed by employees, contractors or consultants be covered by a written agreement before the relevant work is done. To advise you on questions of ownership of intellectual property we would need information on the precise facts of the situation involved.

17. I have invented a board game and I am told that it is difficult to get a patent for games - is this true?

• 
  
  << Start < Previous 1 2 3 Next > End >>