Breach of confidence is a common law action which can be used in the event of threatened or actual disclosure of confidential information, whether such information is contained in documents or otherwise. What the plaintiff needs to show The leading case on breach of confidence is Coco v A N Clark [1969] RPC 41. The elements of the cause of action are: The information must have the necessary quality of confidence about [...]
A domain name is not intellectual property in itself, but the registration and use of domain names can infringe intellectual property rights. This post considers how domain names are treated at law. Domain name dispute resolution services New Zealand Domain Name Commissioner The Domain Name Commissioner (“DNC”) is responsible for administering the .nz domain space. In 2006, the Commissioner established a system, called the Dispute Resolution Service (“DRS”), for resolving disputes regarding [...]
Overview Registered designs protect various aspects of articles produced through industrial processes. They relate to appearance of the item, or more particularly its features, shape or arrangement, rather than an underlying idea. In this sense, registered designs are closer to copyright (protection of an expression of creativity) rather than patents (an inventive concept more generally). There is substantial overlap between the copyright and registered design regimes in New Zealand. New Zealand law [...]
Copyright is concerned with protecting the economic interests of the copyright owner. The Copyright Act also contains a parallel regime which relate to recognition and protection of non-pecuniary matters. Those rights are referred to collectively as moral rights. The leading intellectual property academic Professor William Cornish describes a moral right as being “a proprietary right which protects the personality of authors as expressed in their creations alongside their economic interests in exploitation” [...]
Copyright was once a relatively arcane area of the law which had little impact on the general public. Technological changes associated with the growth of the internet have changed that. Copyright law is now hotly debated, and many members of the public have strong opinions on how the law should operate. What is copyright? Copyright is a property right and is one of the main areas of intellectual property. As with other [...]