Professional Practice: Legal information

Intellectual property is something unique that you physically create, and having the right type of intellectual property can help you to stop people stealing your inventions, designs, things you write, make, produce and the names of your products or brands.

Types of intellectual property:

A patent is a legal right granted by the UK intellectual property office for a new invention. It allows the owner of the patent to take legal action against others who use their invention without their permission, and the right has a life time of 20 years in most countries from the date of the application. 

You are able to register a trademark to protect your brand, such as the name of your product or service. The trademark has to be unique and can include words, sounds, logos and colours, however it cannot be offensive, describe the goods or services it will relate to, be misleading, be too common, look similar to a state symbol or be a 3 dimensional shape associated with the trademark. With this you can take legal action against someone who uses your brand without permission, put the trademark symbol next to our brand. A registered trademark lasts for 10 years and can be renewed for 10 year durations. 

You can register the look of a product you have designed to, the product has to be new, not be offensive, and be your own intellectual property. stop people from stealing it. This includes the appearance, physical shape, configuration and decoration. Registering your design protects any aspect of it and gives you the right to prevent others from using it for up to 25 years and you can renew it every 5 years 

The law of copyright gives the creators of literacy, dramatic, musical, artistic works, sound recordings, broadcasts, films and typographical arrangement of published editions the rights to control the ways in which their material might be used. These rights cover broadcast and public performance, copying, adapting, issuing, renting and lending copies to the public. Copyright is and automatic right and arrises whenever an individual or company creates a  work, to qualify for copyright the work needs to be regarded as original and exhibit a degree of labour, skill or judgement. 

For literary, musical, dramatic or artistic works as well as film the duration of copyright lasts 70 years from the end of the calando year in which the last remaining author, composer or last principle director of the work dies. For sound recordings it's 50 years from the end of the calendar year in which the work was created, or if the work was released within that time then 70 years from the end of the calendar year in which the work was first released. For typographical arrangement of published editions, 25 year from the end of the calendar year in which the work was first published, and broadcasts and cable programmes is 50 years from the end of the calendar year in which the broadcast was made. 

Fair dealing is a term that describes acts which are permitted to a certain degree without infringing work. These can include private and research study purposes, criticism and news reporting, incidental inclusion, copies and lending by libraries, caricature, parody or pastiche. Some others are Performance, copies or lending for educational purposes, acts for the purposes of royal commissions, statutory enquiries, judicial processings and parliamentary purposes, the recording of broadcasts for the purposes of listening or viewing at a more convenient time and producing a back up copy for personal use of a computer programme. 

Health, safety and art: Legislations

Public liability insurance can cover legal costs and compensation payments if your business is held responsible for injury or property damage to a client, contractor or another member of the public. 

Professional liability insurance covers are negligence, misrepresentation, violation of good faith and fair dealing, and inaccurate advice. 

Sale of goods act 1979, section 14 may impose various 'implied terms' into your contract of sale. Two important statutory implied terms relate to 'satisfactory quality' and goods being 'reasonably fit for any particular purpose for which they were bought' 

Sale and supply of goods act 1994, deterioration of work is always the artists responsibility. 

Self employment and tax:

If your income is less than £1000 during the tax year you don't have to have to declare it, if it's more than £1000 you'll need to register with HMRC and fill in a self assessment tax return. 

If you are self employed you'll need to fill in a tax return every year by the 30th of January, all of this is done online and you will need to keep records of all spendings, and if you have a normal job this will go onto your tax returns. This is a legal recording of income as self employed, not from a PAYE job, this involves turnover.

You don't pay tax on your personal allowance to £12,571, and you pay 20% on what you earn between £12,571 and £50,271. Anything you earn above this up to £150,000 will be charged at 40% tax, anything above that is 45%. 

National insurance:

There are two usually types of national insurance if you are self employed. Class 2 if your profits are more than £6725 a year, and class 4 if your profits are £12,570 a year or more. Class 2 is £3.45 per week and class 4 is 9% on profits up to £50,270, and then 2% on profits over that. 

You have the option of becoming an Ltd company if your profits exceed £55,000, however, it involves more record keeping. Also hiring an accountant and registering with companies house. 

VAT:

If your turnover is over £85,000 then you have to register for, charge and pay VAT. This means that you need to add VAT on any bills, which then gets paid as VAT. You are able to claim back any VAT and you have to pay this throughout the year.