Enforcement

What is 'infringement'?

Infringement is a breech of your intellectual property rights by someone else. So, it's an act by someone that you can take action against using your intellectual property rights.

What do I do if my rights are being infringed?

If your rights are being infringed, then in the first instance, you should take advice about what you can do. Under UK law, there are provisions that allow someone that is threatened with an infringement action to take action against the person that is threatening them. What that means is that, if you think your rights are being infringed, don't go running to someone and telling them that they're infringing your rights, because if you're wrong, you might be found to be threatening them, and they could take action against you. The best thing to do is get advice, and then you may be able to sue them, or you may be able to negotiate a deal, or negotiate some other licensing arrangement, or some further settlement.

How expensive are patent trade mark attorneys?

Patent and trade mark attorneys charge relatively high fees because they're acting in a specialist area of the law. However the value of the intellectual property that they can create for you and your business is such that those fees have to be looked at as a valuable investment in the future of your business.

What do I do if I receive a warning letter claiming I have infringed someone's IP?

If you receive a warning letter claiming that you've infringed someone's IP, I would suggest that you speak with your patent or trademark attendant straight away to see if you can find out what your options are. This will probably develop into you either taking action against the person claiming an infringement of their rights, to stop doing what you're doing, to redesign your product, or to change your business approach in order there's no longer any infringement of IP rights.

What is confidential information?

Confidential information is information that you've provided someone in circumstances where they've agreed that it is confidential and they will keep it confidential. So you might have a non-disclosure agreement with them, or a confidentiality agreement with them. And they've agreed that they will keep it secret, and that information is in fact secret as in it's not widely known.

What is breach of confidence?

A breach of confidence is when you've given someone some confidential information and then they've used that information in a way that they weren't allowed to under the terms of your confidentiality agreement. They might have made that information public or they might have told it to someone else who you didn't want them to tell it to according to your contract.

Can I sue for breach of confidence?

You can sue someone who breaches your confidence, yes. The issue with the breach of confidence, though, is that once the information is out, then it could enter the public domain, and its value may very well be lost. You should think very carefully when using confidential information on non-disclosure agreements, as to what you might be able to do if those agreements are breached, and whether everything will be lost, and maybe use some other kind of intellectual property protection. For example, if patent protection is available, or copyright protection, to protect the same of kind of subject matter, rather than trying to keep it secret.