IP and IT
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- Many businesses regard the Data Protection Act 1998 as something that merely requires a lot of form filling and the payment of fees, but there is a lot more to it than that. The purpose of the Act is to protect a person's right to privacy with regard...
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- The Data Protection Act 1998 gives individuals the right to access information held about them by organisations. The Act governs how organisations can use the personal information they hold including how they acquire, store, share or dispose of it. ...
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- UK law relating to the sending of unsolicited direct marketing material by electronic means care based on the EC Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications. A major aim of the Directive was to cut down on the amount of spam that e-mail users...
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- The Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations introduced specific legislation to underpin e-commerce. If your business has an Internet presence then you need to make sure that you are not falling foul of these new rules. The Regulations do not just...
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- Copyright is a right which exists without any specific steps having to be taken. It applies whenever there is a work created which contains original skill or labour. It applies to written material and that includes email, as a recent High Court ruling has...
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- Although it has long been regarded as best practice, new regulations have made it compulsory for certain business information to be present on corporate websites and e-mails or other electronic communications, including invoices and order forms. The...
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- The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) 2000 came fully into force on 1 January 2005 and it has serious implications for businesses doing business with the public sector. The reason for this is that because one of the aims of the Act is to engender greater...
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- The British Standards Institution has published (at 30) new guidance on making sure that your website is disability-friendly. Under the Disability Discrimination Act , it is unlawful for a service provider to discriminate against a disabled person by...
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- The UK Intellectual Property Office (formerly the Patent Office) offers a dispute resolution service which is aimed at preventing unnecessary litigation over patent disputes. The new opinions service allows anyone to request an opinion on any UK patent,...
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- Protecting intellectual property has always been a complex area of law, but in one specific area things may be getting clearer. The Registered Designs Regulations 2001 include several protections for inventors of designs. If you have a new design which...
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- The decision in the 2006 case involving L Or al, in which the cosmetics giant was rebuffed in its attempt to prevent a smaller producer, called Special Effects, bringing to the market products which could be confused with its own Special FX range,...
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- Anyone processing personal data must comply with the eight enforceable principles of good practice. Here is a checklist. Data must be: fairly and lawfully processed; processed for limited purposes; adequate, relevant and not...
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- Since January 2007 it has been compulsory for certain business information to be present on corporate websites and emails or other electronic communications, including invoices and order forms. The regulations apply to all limited companies and...
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- The Definition of Personal Data is contained in s1 of the Data Protection Act 1991. Personal Data is data that relates to a living individual who can be identified from the data or from the data and other information which is in possession of, or likely to...
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- These days it is increasingly the case that when your IT doesn't work, neither does your business. Clearly, the best way to deal with IT problems is prevention, which means doing regular backups, proper systems maintenance, keeping anti-virus protection up...