Generally, you can obtain patents for inventions in any technological field. The subject matter of a patent can either be a product or a process. Products that can be patented range from kitchen utensils and machines (i.e. the machines’ functional features) to nanotechnology chips and manufactured articles (e.g. a cup or a table). For processes … Read more
A patent is a type of property right. It gives the owner of the patented invention an exclusive right for a fixed period to make, use, sell, import or exploit their patented invention. Once you have obtained patent protection for your invention, other people cannot commercially use, distribute, sell or import your invention without your … Read more
If your company has its own website and you wish to link another website, you should think about whether this may infringe the copyright of the other website. Generally, if you link a webpage, you do not need to obtain consent from the webpage’s copyright owner. This is because a link only contains the webpage’s … Read more
When you are conducting certain business matters and you need to download images from Google or other websites located in other countries, you need to be aware of whether you may breach the copyright of those images. Downloading images from Google Generally, if you want to download and use images from Google, you are not … Read more
There are two ways by which a company may go out of business: When it goes into liquidation: There are two major types of liquidation process – solvent liquidation and insolvent liquidation. Solvent liquidation usually occurs due to the retirement of a director or may be the process of closure when the company cannot further … Read more
When the owner of a copyrighted work passes away, the work does not arrive in the “public domain” immediately. The duration of copyright protection of the work depends on when the work was created or published and when the copyright owner passes away. Under Hong Kong’s copyright law, for works created by individuals (rather than … Read more
Copyright owner of a work Generally, the author of the work (i.e. the person that creates the work) is the first copyright owner in that work. However, according to section 11 of the Copyright Ordinance (Cap. 528), the author of a work may differ from one category of works to another category. This is demonstrated … Read more
Generally, with a Creative Commons licence, public users of a website are allowed to use the website’s photos and images freely. If you are a publisher or blogger and you use a website’s images, you may think that you are using them correctly. However, you may be unaware of some possible infringements that you might … Read more
Generally, if someone has obtained a Creative Commons licence for their work, you can use their work. However, the extent to which you can use the work will depend on the type of licence that the author holds. For details about the various types of Creative Commons licences available in Hong Kong, you may read … Read more
In Hong Kong, if you have a Creative Commons licence, your moral rights will not be affected. All Creative Commons licences preserve moral rights but allow others to use the work in ways intended by the licence that might otherwise infringe moral rights. If you have obtained a 4.0 licence for your material, it means … Read more