- Did you know that as designers,
we can create property with our minds?
Unfortunately, given the state of the housing market,
I don't mean actual physical property,
but what we create is intellectual property.
And while IP might not be tangible,
it is incredibly valuable.
And it's really important that we understand
our rights of ownership with the work that we create.
So in this video, which is kind of being sponsored
by the EU Intellectual Property Office or the EUIPO,
I wanna talk about IP, copyright, trademarks,
and licensing, and give you the lowdown on what they are
and when they apply to you and your design work.
(upbeat music)
Let's start by defining the differences
between these things.
So intellectual property means original work
created by the mind,
it's an idea that you came up with and brought to life,
whether that's an invention and artistic
or literary work, characters, symbols, images,
for us as designers, it's the logos we create.
It's the websites we design, or the illustrations we draw.
These are all intellectual property
because they're expressions of our ideas
and our design thinking.
Copyright is the law that protects our ownership rights
of the intellectual property we create.
And this is something that automatically exists
whenever work is created.
It doesn't need to be registered.
So if you've ever been on someone's portfolio website
and you've seen like a copyright 2021 in the footer,
that's not something they've had to register for
in order to be able to say, it's copyrighted.
It's like just a little note they've added to say, hey,
this design of the site is my intellectual property,
and you're not allowed to copy it unless I say you can.
But honestly, even if it didn't say that
the copyright would still exist.
Copyright laws vary between countries
in terms of how long they apply for.
In Europe, for example,
copyright is valid throughout the life of the author
or the creator of the work,
and then 70 years after their death.
And after that time,
the IP becomes part of the public domain
and it can be used by anyone for anything
and it's no longer protected by copyright.
A trademark is something that is used to distinguish
a company from others.
It could be like a logo, a brand name,
a color palette even in some cases,
and you do register a trademark to essentially claim it
so that no one else in your industry
can use something similar to it
that could end up confusing customers with other companies.
And in the EU, you can do this through the EUIPO,
trademarks are usually registered for a certain product
or service, and they have to be distinctive as well.
Which means that a customer should be able to distinguish
you from other companies in the marketplace
through your brand name, through unique logo design,
whatever the thing is that you're registering as a trademark
and trademarks also can't be descriptive.
So they can't describe what it is you sell
like wine, for example, for a wine company,
because that's a term that needs to be available
for everyone in that category
to describe what it is they make.
Last in our list of terms to define is licensing.
So licensing is when you ask the copyright owner
of an original work or the owner of a trademark,
allow someone else to use it under a defined set of terms.
And this might be a creative commons license,
where you allow people to use it for free,
but you're saying you still own the rights to it.
Or it might be a usage license that someone pays for.
Like I have with my font Grayscale,
I'm the owner of the intellectual property,
that is the font, I'm the owner of the copyright of it.
But when someone purchases a copy of the font,
they're getting a license to use it for their projects.
So it's a way to allow people to use something
you've created or a trademark you own
without transferring the ownership officially to them.
Speaking of ownership,
now that we have those basic definitions out of the way,
there are three core things
that designers should be aware of to do with IP.
When you are employed at a company,
a lot of the time there will be a clause in your contract
that states that during your work hours
or using work devices,
sometimes even just like for the duration of your employment
in general, anything you create
becomes the intellectual property of the company, not you.
So as soon as it's created,
it becomes property of the company.
This is really common
and it's not something to worry about necessarily,
but it is something to make sure you're aware of
in the contracts that you're signing for your work
and to ask for exclusions of certain things as well.
If you're someone like me who has a lot of side projects,
you can ask for those to be excluded in the contract,
to say that you retain the ownership to them
and related to this, if you're a freelancer,
you should make sure to clarify in contracts
with your clients who will own the IP at the end of this,
do you retain the ownership
and grant them a license to use it
for a certain period of time,
or are you transferring the ownership to them?
And you can often charge a lot more for the latter.
Second, it is your responsibility as a designer
to make sure that the work you do for a client is legal
and not infringing on any copyright or trademarks.
Of course, we take inspiration from others, right?
In our designs, in our work.
But we have to make sure that the work we create
as a result of that inspiration
gives a different overall impression
rather than being a straight up copy.
IP can be very subjective, but in general,
that giving a different impression
is the important piece here.
So like it's okay to use a layout idea
that you saw on someone else's site for your design.
But if you also use the same fonts and the same colors,
then it starts to feel more like a copy.
It is super important for us as designers
to be aware of trademarks when we're working on branding
in particular,
we have to make sure that the logo we're designing
won't accidentally infringe on a trademark
of another business in our client's industry
with the service they provide.
The EUIPO created this super useful trademark search tool
where you could upload a logo design
and see if there's anything similar to it
already registered as a trademark.
So you can check that out at tmdn.org/tmview.
It'll be linked in the description.
Whenever you're working on a logo design project,
you can just search with an image,
your name by industry and country
to check if anything similar already exists.
And lastly, you need to know your rights
and the value of your IP,
which I hope is something that this video is helping with.
Whenever I talk about copyright, I have people ask me,
like, what do I do if someone is copying my work?
And unfortunately, this is a really big issue
in the creative community.
And if this is happening to you,
I would suggest first reaching out,
letting the copier know that this isn't okay
that you actually own this intellectual property
and that they aren't allowed to copy it.
I would definitely recommend you try that first,
because if that doesn't work,
you will need to turn to legal proceedings
if you want them to stop.
And like I said before,
IP can be really subjective and it will come down
to a decision in court.
So anything that you have that could prove
when you created the work that you were the one to credit
it will really help if you do wanna pursue that route.
And this is why registering trademarks for a brand
is so important because it gives you an IP right title
that you can then use to prove your ownership.
It's pretty cool that we can create a valuable asset
just with our minds and design thinking skills, right?
I hope that learning about intellectual property
has helped you to see the designs you create,
not just as pixels on a page,
but as a creation that really adds value to a business.
It adds a lot of value.
Huge thanks to the EUIPO for sponsoring this video.
Please check them out at the links in the description
for more information,
they share loads of useful stuff
about IP on their social platforms.
So they are worth a follow,
especially if this is area that you wanna learn more about.
If you found this video useful,
please give it a like and share it with your design friends.
It's really important that we're all aware of these things.
And so it helps to spread the information,
spread the knowledge.
Thanks for watching.
And I'll see you next time.
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