Jewellery Making, Copyright & Being Unique

Automatic protection

Firstly, let’s take a quick look at what protections your jewellery business already has.

Copyright: This protects your designs and stops others from using it without your permission. This includes “Writing and literary works, art, photography, films, TV, music, web content, sound recordings” - GOV UK. Copyright lasts a minimum of life plus 50 years and at least 25 years for photographs.

Design right: “Shapes of objects”. This is the overall shape of your design, use of materials, gemstones, texture, colour, techniques used. This right protects your design for 10 years after it was sold or 15 years after its creation.

UK Intellectual property protection you can apply for

Trademarks: This includes product names and logos, which enables you to take legal action when someone uses your brand without your permission, it also allows you to use the ® symbol next to your brand name and enables you to sell and license your brand. Trademarks last for 10 years.

Registered designs: This includes the appearance of your jewellery designs, the shape, patterns and colours used. This allows you to prevent others from using it and allows you to take legal action if anyone copies your work. This provides you with the right to prevent others from using your design for up to 25 years, and you have to renew your design ever 5 years.