Intellectual Property Glossary

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Absolute Grounds for Refusal: Reasons for refusing to register a mark, when considered purely on its own merits.
Abstract: A brief summary of an invention contained, mainly, in a patent application.
Affiliated company: An affiliated company is a company that is related to another company in some way. There will be a link between the two companies. This can take various forms, but will always imply some sort of financial or decisional subordination and/or a special relation. Consequently there is a degree of influence over the affiliated company's decisions.
Appellation of Origin: The geographical name of a country, region, or specific place which serves to designate a product originating from there, the characteristic qualities of which are due exclusively or essentially to the geographical environment, including natural factors, human factors, or both.
Application: The formal request for the grant or registration of an intellectual property right
Arbitration: Extra-judicial mode of dispute resolution through which disputing parties waive their right to go to court and decide to ask independent third parties to resolve their dispute. The use of this system can be decided either before or after the arising of the dispute.
Artistic Works: A category of works that can be copyrighted. They include any visual representation, such as paintings, drawings, maps, photographs, sculptures, engravings, architectural plans.
Assignment: The transfer of an intellectual property right by one person (the assignor) to another (the assignee).
Author: The creator of an artistic, literary, musical or dramatic work.

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Berne Convention: The 1886 international convention (amended several times) which sets out substantive rules for the protection of copyright. at national level.
Board of Appeal: The Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (OHIM) has Boards of Appeal consisting of legally qualified members who make decisions on appeals made against any decision taken by the various departments of the Office, in particular decisions concerning trade mark examination, opposition or designs.
The European Patent Office (EPO, http://www.european-patent-office.org) also has Boards of Appeal, which give independent rulings on appeals filed against decisions taken during examination of applications or during opposition proceedings.
The members of the boards of appeal of the EPO and OHIM are impartial.

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Certificate of Registration: A document issued by an IP office certifying that an intellectual property right has been granted or registered.
Certification Marks: Trade marks identifying goods or services meeting a defined standard, such as regional or other geographic origin, material, mode of manufacture, quality, accuracy, or other characteristics (see Trade mark).
Claims (patents): The part of a patent application which defines the matter for which protection is sought.
Classification: In order to make information more easily available to the public all designs, trademarks and patents must be classified in line with the internationally agreed system of classification by product. If an applicant for a Community design or trademark does not the know classification, the Office will supply it.
Collecting society: Organisation which manages and administers copyright on behalf of holders of copyright who are members of it. The organisation works on behalf of its members in collecting royalties which will be further distributed between the members and in giving authorisations in their place (licenses).
Collective Mark: A trade mark used, or intended to be used, in commerce, by the members of a cooperative, an association, or other collective group or organisation. Also, a trade mark that indicates membership of a union, an association, or other organisation. (see Trade mark).
Community Design: A registered or unregistered design valid in the whole European Union under Regulation 6/2002.
Community Patent: A patent granted for the whole European Union - Community patents do not yet exist, but there is a proposal under discussion to establish them.
Community Trade mark: A trade mark registered for the whole European Union under Regulation 40/94 as amended by Regulation 422/2004.
Complex product: A product for design registration purposes which consists of multiple components which can be dissembled and reassembled e.g. the bumper of a car is a component as it may be removed and replaced by another.
Compulsory Licence: A special third-party right to use a patented invention, granted by the State, under certain circumstances normally involving the non-use of the invention by the patent owner.
Computer implemented invention: Any invention implemented on a computer or similar apparatus which is carried out by a computer program. The new proposal for an EC Directive defines Computer Implemented Inventions as "any invention the performance of which involves the use of a computer, computer network or other programmable apparatus and having one or more prima facie novel features which are realized wholly or partly by means of a computer program or computer programs".
Computer program: A computer program is a set of programming instructions that enable a computer to perform certain functions or achieve certain results.
Confidentiality clause: A clause in a contract obliging the parties to an agreement to take all necessary measures to keep all information transmitted in the course of the discussions confidential.
Copyleft: A licensing system by which the licensor uses and licenses his copyright on a work to allow anyone to use, modify or improve the work, on condition that any beneficiaries of this advantageous license do the same with their own copyright on the modifications or improvements. "Copy-left" is meant to be the antithesis of "Copy-right", which is seen as a way of keeping works under control. This term is associated with the Free Software Foundation (where the term and system were born) and Open Source Initiative movements. (http://www.gnu.org)
Copyright: A form of intellectual property that grants authors and artists the exclusive right to the reproduction, derivation, distribution, performance, and display of their original works, including literary, artistic, dramatic and musical works and computer programs.
This is an unregistered right and comes into effect immediately, as soon as something that can be protected is created and "fixed" in some way, e.g. on paper, on film, via sound recording, as an electronic record on the internet, etc.
Copyright can protect original artistic works, e.g. paintings, engravings, photographs, sculptures, collages, works of architecture, technical drawings, diagrams, maps, instruction manuals, computer programs and lyrics for songs. Copyright does not protect ideas but it protects the way that the idea is expressed in a piece of work.
Counterfeiting: The act of producing or knowingly selling a product that contains an intentional unauthorised reproduction of an IP right (trade mark).
Counterfeit trade mark goods: Any goods, or packaging, including goods which may not bear a counterfeit mark, but which are directly contained within packaging which bears a counterfeit trade mark, bearing without authorization a trade mark which is identical to, or substantially indistinguishable from, the trade mark validly registered in respect of similar, or closely related goods, or which cannot be distinguished in its essential aspects from such a trade mark, and which thereby infringes the rights of the owner of the trade mark in question under the law of the country of importation or if the goods are destined for exportation or are in transit, the country where the suspension of goods is carried out.
Any goods bearing marks which are identical to, or substantially indistinguishable from, registered or otherwise protected trade marks, when used on related or similar goods or services that differ only minimally from those for which the registered or otherwise protected trade mark is causing confusion as to the source or origin.
Customs Law: The statutory and regulatory provisions concerning the importation and exportation of goods, the administration and enforcement of which are specifically charged to the Customs, and any regulations made by the Customs under its statutory powers.
Cyber squatting: The occupation, in bad faith, of a domain name by someone who has no legitimate right to the name, when someone else does have a right to the name. There will usually be an intention to profit by later reselling the domain name back to the company that has rights in the name.

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Description: The part of a trade mark or design application that explains the characteristics of the trade mark or design.
The part of a patent application that contains instructions that would inform a skilled person how to make or use the invention.
For a registered Community design this is an optional statement, which must not exceed 100 words and should relate to features appearing in the reproduction of the design. This is not published but kept on the file and may be inspected on request.
Descriptive Mark: A word, picture, or other symbol that describes something about the goods or services in connection with which it is used.
Design: See industrial design
Design Patent: A term used in the United States to describe a form of intellectual property similar to an industrial design.
Disclaimer: A declaration that the applicant does not claim exclusive rights for part of an IP right.
Disclosure (Design): The disclosure is making a design available to the public in such a way that the interested circles operating within the European Community could reasonably be aware of the design. The date and means of disclosure are important as it creates a right of unregistered Community design but can conversely destroy the novelty of a registered design if it is not applied for within 12 months of the disclosure.
Dispute resolution service provider: A body that organizes the resolution of domain name disputes. A dispute resolution service provider does not actually decide the dispute, rather, it organises an arbitration panel, and the panel decides the dispute.
Dissemination: "Dissemination" means the disclosure of knowledge by any appropriate means other than publication.
DNS - (Domain Name System): The domain name system (DNS) is the way that Internet domain names are translated into IP addresses in order to locate a machine on the Internet.
Domain Name: An alphanumerical human-friendly form, easy to memorise for Internet users, corresponding to a digital Internet Protocol address (e.g. www.oami.eu.int).
Drawings: Illustrations explaining an invention or a design contained in the structure of a patent or a a design application.
Duration: The period of time for which an intellectual property right lasts.

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E-commerce: The buying and selling of goods and services on the Internet (also called e-business).
Economic rights: Rights according to which the author controls the exploitation of his work. The author can use his right, transfer it or licence it.
Employer liability: Employer is liable for damages caused by its employees in the performance of their duties. This question is of importance regarding intellectual property. Indeed, if employee of a participant to an action is infringing a third party intellectual property rights, employer may be liable for damages suffered.
European Patent Classification: The technical content of patent documents is classified according to the International Patent Classification (IPC), (http://www.wipo.org). The European Patent Office has further refined the International Patent Classification by adding subgroups. This refined classification system is called the European Patent Classification (EPC). (http://l2.espacenet.com)
European Patent Convention: An international convention governing the application for, processing and grant of a patent valid in each State party designated by the applicant. Once granted, a European patent is treated as a bundle of separate national patents.
European Patent Office (EPO): Intergovernmental organisation (not dependant of the EU) set up to administer the European Patent Convention. http://www.european-patent-office.org)
European Union: As of 01.01 2007 this consists of the following member states - Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Rumania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom -.
Examination: The process through which the Office determines whether an application warrants registration. The main objective is to determine if the application fulfil the legal requirements to be registered.
Exclusive licence: An agreement whereby an intellectual property right holder exclusively authorizes to a third party to use one or more rights embodied in the intellectual property right which is the subject of the licence.
Exclusive right: Economic right allowing the author to completely control his/her right to authorise or to forbid a use covered by his right, which nobody else can exercise.
Exhaustion of the right: Doctrine according to which an Intellectual Property holder "exhausts" his/her rights after the first legitimate sale of the product in a country, region or on the international market. It provides a legal justification for the admission of parallel imports. The individual product sold can be sold again without the permission of the IP holder.
Exploitation: The last phase of a project is the exploitation of its results. This means the commercialisation of your results. You may decide to exploit these results yourselves - for example, through the development and sale of new products. You may choose to license or to transfer the resulting intellectual property to third parties. Or you may prefer a combination of these approaches.
Export: The act of taking any goods out of a customs territory. Being the EU a customs territory, the act of taking any goods from a EU Member State to another is not an export.

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Fees: Sums payable for the services provided by IP offices.
First to Invent: Rule under which patent priority is determined by which inventor was the first to invent, rather than by who was the first to file a patent application (the rule in the United States).

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Generic Name: A word used to name a class or category of product or service - a generic name cannot be registered as a trade mark for the thing it describes (e.g. the word "WOOD" could not be used as a trade mark for things made of wood, although it could be used for products and services unrelated to wood).
Geographical Indication: Indication which identifies a good as originating in the territory of a Member State, or a region or locality in that territory, where a given quality, reputation or other characteristic of the good is essentially attributable to its geographical origin.
Goods Infringing Design Right: Any goods, produced without authorization of the right holder, embodying a design identical to the design validly registered in respect of such goods, or which cannot be distinguished in its essential aspects from the registered design, and which thereby infringes the rights of the owner of the design.
Goods Infringing Patents: Any goods, the subject of a patent, or obtained directly by a patented process, made without authorization of the right holder, identical to the patent validly registered, or which cannot be distinguished in its essential aspects from the registered patent, and which thereby infringes the rights of the owner of the patent.
Goodwill: The advantage stemming from the reputation and trade connections of a business.
Grace period: One of the conditions for granting an Intellectual Property Right (Patent, Utility Model or Design) is that its subject matter must be novel. The period of grace is the period before the application date during which the inventor / applicant may disclose the content of the application without it being considered anteriority, destroying novelty.
Graphical Representations: A graphical representation can be either a photograph or line drawing of the design suitable for reproduction. It should be reproduced on a neutral background and must not be retouched with ink or correcting fluid.

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The Hague Agreement (Geneva Act): An international system administered by WIPO whereby it is possible to apply for design protection in a number of states at one time. This is similar to a "bundle" of national rights and designation fees for each country will be necessary. The number of countries that are members are limited. (http://www.wipo.int)

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ICANN - (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Number): The private (non-governmental) non-profit-making corporation with responsibility for IP address space allocation, protocol parameter assignment, domain name system management and root server system management functions, and the services previously performed by IANA. (http://www.icann.org)
Importation: The act of bringing or causing any goods to be brought into a Customs territory.
Indication of product (registered Community design): The products must be clearly stated in order to allow each item to be classified in only one class of the Locarno classification. It is advisable to use a term taken from the published list on OHIM's website.
Indication of Source: Any expression or sign used to indicate that a product or service originates in a country or region or a specific place.
Individual character: If the overall impression a design produces on the informed user differs from the overall impression produced by any design previously made public it is said to possess individual character.
Industrial application: An invention shall be considered as susceptible of industrial application if it can be made or used in any kind of industry, including agriculture (http://www.european-patent-office.org).
Industrial Design: Design comprising the visual features of lines, contours, colours, shape, texture or materials of a product or its ornamentation applied to a manufactured article.
Infringement: Carrying out an action that falls within the scope of the intellectual property rights owned by another person, without their permission.
Infringing copy: Work copied from an original protected by copyright, without the authorisation of the author (i.e. when a substantial part of a protected work has been reproduced without authorisation).
Intellectual Property: The general term for intangible property rights, which are results of intellectual effort. Patents, trade marks, designs and copyright are the main intellectual property rights. Intellectual property covers two main areas: industrial property, covering inventions, trade marks, industrial designs, and protected designations of origin; copyright, represented by literary, musical, artistic, photographic, and audio-visual works.
Intellectual Property Agent: Specialist entitled to prepare and prosecute intellectual property applications and proceedings on behalf of an applicant.
Interconnections (design protection): Interconnections refer to the feature of a product which enables that product to be assembled or to be mechanically connected with another product, e.g. the connection for a plug or an exhaust pipe is of a specific "form and dimension" in order to fit with a car. This will not usually include the possibility of alternative configurations as in the case of a modular system.
International Chamber of Commerce: Private global business organisation. Its activities cover a broad spectrum: arbitration and dispute resolution; promotion of open trade and market economy system, business self-regulation, fighting corruption or commercial crime. Official web site: (http://www.iccwbo.org)
International organisation: Term defined as "any legal entity arising from the association of States, other than the Community, established on the basis of a treaty or similar act, having common institutions and an international legal personality distinct from that of its Member States."

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Joint ownership: Situation in which two or more people share ownership of good or right. The scope of rights of each owner depends on the type of intellectual property right (copyright, patents) and on the applicable law, unless the joint owners have made a contract governing their relation to each other.

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Knowledge: Term defined in the Model contract as "the results, including information, whether or not they can be protected, arising from the project governed by this contract, as well as copyrights or rights pertaining to such results following applications for, or the issue of patents, designs, plant varieties, supplementary protection certificates or similar forms of protection."
Knowledge based society: Is a society based on the internet and on the information technologies, where information and knowledge are sources of added- value.

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Legitimate interest: A contractor's interest of any kind, particularly a commercial interest that may be claimed. To this end the contractor must prove that failure to take account of its interest would result in him suffering disproportionately great harm.
Licence: Permission granted by the owner of an intellectual property right to do something restricted by that right, often within a defined time, context, market line, and/or territory.
Literary Works: Works consisting of text such as novels, poems, song lyrics, catalogues, reports and tables, as well as translations of such works. It also includes computer programs.

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Madrid Agreement: An international system, administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), which allows the owner of a trade mark registered in one country to apply for protection of that trade mark in other countries within the system.
Modular systems: A modular system consists of a number of items that are designed to be connected together in various ways. The typical example of a modular system is the building blocks or tiles used by children. This is also of particular relevance to the furniture industry as it includes items such as desks and tables, which may consist of a number of smaller tables that can be assembled in alternative configurations.
Moral Rights: Certain personal and non-transferable rights of the creator of a work, recognized by IP laws, which differ from country to country - they usually include the right to be acknowledged as the author and to protect the integrity of the work.
Multiple application: An unlimited number of designs may be combined in one multiple application. The products must all be in the same Locarno class unless the design is for ornamentation, which is not limited to this class rule.
Multiple claims: Precise statements, to write in a patent application, which define the boundaries of patent protection and to differentiate the invention from the existing ones.
Musical Work: A category of copyrightable work that consists of music (including the lyrics, if any).

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National Office: Public authority whose role is to register patents, trade marks and designs (and other intellectual property rights) in a specific country.
Novelty: A condition required for patents to be granted, and for designs to be registrable; an invention or design must not have been made public, anywhere in the world, before the filing date (or priority date)
In the case of a registered Community design if a design has been publicly disclosed, before the date of filing of the design application (or before the priority date if the application has one), it may be subject to an application for a declaration of invalidity.
In the case of an unregistered Community design, if another design has been disclosed, before the date on which the design for which protection is claimed has been made available to the public it may not be considered novel.
Designs shall be considered to be identical if their features differ only in immaterial details.

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Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM): The Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade marks and Designs), based in Alicante, Spain. This is an agency of the European Commission and has responsibility for administering the Community Design Regulation and also the Community Trade Mark Regulation and was established by Regulation 40/94. Trade marks or designs are thus protected throughout the territory of the European Union in a single stage. (http://oami.europa.eu)
Official Gazette: A volume periodically published by National and international Offices that includes information about the situation of patent, trade marks and design applications in progress.
Official Journal of the European Union: The Official Journal of the European Union (OJ) is the periodical published every working day in all 20 official languages of the European Union (EU). It consists of two related series (L for legislation and C for information and notices) and a supplement (S for public tenders). The L and C series are available on (http://europa.eu.int) and the supplement on (http://ted.publications.eu.int)
Opposition: Process where any person may object to the granting of a trade mark, patent or design registration if they have valid grounds for doing so.
Ornamentation: The pattern which is applied to the surface of a product without substantially changing the shape or contours.

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Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property: An international treaty on intellectual property concluded in 1883 and updated several times that provides common rules between the State parties for the administration of intellectual property rights.
Parts of products: It is possible to protect as a design the part of a product even though it is not marketed separately e.g. the handle of a tea cup
Patent: A grant that gives an inventor the right, for a limited period, to stop others from making, using or selling an invention without the owner's permission. In return for this right, the applicant must disclose how the invention works. Patents are generally intended to cover products or processes that possess or contain new functional or technical aspects; patents are therefore concerned with, for example, how things work, what they do, how they do it, what they are made of or how they are made.
Patent Application: The documentation applying for a patent to be granted, including a specification describing the invention, any necessary drawings, a claim legally defining the limits of the rights claimed, and the filing fee.
Patent of Procedure: A patent that covers a way of obtaining a product that may have previously been known, in contrast to a patent for a product.
Patent Pending: A "Patent Pending" notice on a product informs others that an application for a patent has been filed, and that legal protection (including retroactive rights) may be forthcoming.
Paternity right: Moral right that allows the author to require the mention of his/her name or nickname on his/her work or to refuse it. The underline goal is to protect the integrity of the author; by preserving the link between his/her person and his/her work in public's mind.
PCT Patent Cooperation Treaty: International treaty allowing a patent application to be filed in many different countries at once by a standardized filing procedure.
Piracy: Action by which a person reproduces, without the authorisation of the proprietary rights owner, copies of protected work, in the purpose to sell them for profit.
Pirated copyright goods: Any goods which are copies made without the consent of the right holder or person duly authorized by the right holder in the country of production and which are made directly or indirectly from an article where the making of that copy would have constituted an infringement of a copyright or a related right under the law of the country of importation or if the goods are destined for exportation or moving in transit, the country where the suspension of the release of the goods is carried out.
Plagiarism: Action by which a person copies somebody's intellectual work, without obtaining previously his authorisation, and presents the copy as his/her own original work.
Preliminary Search: A search through intellectual property records before submitting an application for registration in order to verify whether a patent, trade mark or industrial design has been previously applied for or registered. The search may disclose conflicting registrations, and show that the application process would be in vain.
Prior Art: Existing technological information against which an invention or design is judged to determine if it is novel and can thus be registered.
Priority Date: A claim that an application should be given the filing date of an earlier application provided that this earlier application was filed in the previous 12 months (for patents) or 6 months (for designs and trade marks) by the same applicant.
Private Copying: Copying of material protected by copyright, such as pre-recorded musical, literature or art, for personal use - this may or may not be copyright infringement, depending on the circumstances and on the jurisdiction.
Product: A product can be any industrially manufactured or handicraft item including packaging, graphic symbols and typographic typefaces but excluding computer programs. It also includes products that are composed of multiple components, which may be disassembled and reassembled.
Proprietor: The owner of an intellectual property right (not necessarily the inventor or creator).
Public Domain: a) The legal situation of an invention, design, work, commercial symbol or any other creation that is not protected by an intellectual property right.
b) In the law relating to confidentiality and trade secrets, that which is publicly known.
Publication (design): In the broader definition of the term, publication of a design is the act of making it public or available for commercial sale or use.
With regard to a registered Community design it will only be published (i.e. be made known to the public) in the Community Design Bulletin following registration. The Community Design Register will include the following information (except for those instances where deferred publication has been requested): the holder's name and address, the representation, indication of product and Locarno classification, date of filing, file number, date and number of registration, date of publication of registration and the language of filing and second language.
Also where applicable, the following may also be published: name and address of representative, description of design, name and address of designers and any priority details.

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Register of Community designs: The Community Design Register will include the following information (except for those instances where deferred publication has been requested): the holder's name and address, the representation, indication of product and Locarno classification, date of filing, file number, date and number of registration, date of publication of registration and the language of filing and second language. Also, where applicable, the following may also be published: name and address of representative, description of design, name and address of designers and any priority details.
Registered Community Design (RCD): Industrial property title which confers on the owner the exclusive right to use a design and to prevent any third person using the design without his consent. This includes the making, offering, putting on the market, importing and exporting of the product.
Registrant: Any person or company who registers a domain name.
Registrar: An entity empowered by a registry to register domain names and intellectual property rights.
Registration: The formal recording of an intellectual property right in a registry.
Registry: A place where registers are kept.
Relative Grounds for Refusal: Reasons for refusing to register a trade mark by considering it in relation to other, earlier trade marks.
Renewal: Extension of the registration of an intellectual property right for an additional period of time.
Renewal Fee: Fee required in order to renew the registration of an intellectual property right for an additional period of time
Representations: A graphical representation can be either a photograph or line drawing of the design suitable for reproduction. It should be reproduced on a neutral background and must not be retouched with ink or correcting fluid.
Representatives: Legal practitioners and persons with specialist experience or qualifications who are entered on the list of Professional Representatives held by the Office (OHIM).
Royalty: Sum paid to a copyright owner for the sale or use of the intellectual property.

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Search (Preliminary): A search through intellectual property records before submitting an application for registration in order to verify whether a patent, trade mark or industrial design has been previously applied for or registered. The search may disclose conflicting registrations, and show that the application process would be in vain.
Secondary Meaning: A meaning for a trade mark when a majority of the public considers a term to be an indicator of the source and quality of a product, rather than merely descriptive of that product. Secondary meaning develops after long, continuous, and exclusive use.
Semiconductor Topographies: Special intellectual property protection for the layout design of a semiconductor chip or its topography.
Seniority: Date claimed by the owner of an earlier trade mark registered in an EU country, when the owner applies for an identical trade mark as a Community trade mark for goods or services identical with or contained within those for which the earlier trade mark was registered.
Service Mark: See Trade mark.
SME: The definition of SME's from the Commission (96/280/EG ) (http://europa.eu.int) is the following: Article 1 1. Small and medium-sized enterprises, hereinafter referred to as 'SMEs`, are defined as enterprises which: - have less than 250 employees, and - have either, an annual turnover not exceeding ECU 40 million, or an annual balance-sheet total not exceeding ECU 27 million, - conform to the criterion of independence as defined in paragraph 3. 2. Where it is necessary to distinguish between small and medium-sized enterprises, the 'small enterprise` is defined as an enterprise which: - has fewer than 50 employees and - has either, an annual turnover not exceeding ECU 7 million, or an annual balance-sheet total not exceeding ECU 5 million, - conforms to the criterion of independence as defined in paragraph 3. The recommendation 96/280/EC will be replaced by a new definition which will be enacted on 1st January 2005 (Commission Recommendation of 6 May 2003).
Specification: The part of a patent application that contains the description, drawings and claims.
Suggestive Mark: A suggestive mark is a mark that suggests a quality that the related goods or services have, but does not directly describe them.

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Trade mark: A trade mark is any sign that can distinguish the goods and services of one company from those of another. The trade mark registration protects the distinctiveness of the sign compared to the other existing signs in use for the same products or services whereas the design protects the novelty and the individual character of a product. A trade mark has no time limit, (it can be renewed indefinitely by periods of ten years).
Trade marks Journal: An Official Gazette or bulletin about trade marks.
Trade marks Office: An office responsible for registering trade marks.
Trade Name: A name used to identify and distinguish a company or business, as opposed to a trade mark used to identify and distinguish goods or services.
Trade Secret: Information about a product or process kept secret from competitors and that gives competitive advantage to its owners.

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Unfair Competition: Commercial conduct that the law views as unjust, giving a civil claim against a person who has been injured by the conduct.
Unregistered Community design: An automatic protection which provides a short-term protection of three years and comes into existence merely by the disclosing of a design to the public within the European Union. It is a right against copying only.
Unitary character: A Community design or trade mark has equal effect throughout the EU effectively doing away with internal borders.
Utility Model: Type of protection for an invention for which the requirements are lower than for a patent.

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Views: For registration of a two-dimensional design, the representation should include only one view but in the case of three-dimensional designs, the representation may contain up to seven views of the design. These views of the design may be from the side, the front or a perspective or isometric view.

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WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization): An international body dedicated to helping to ensure that the rights of creators and owners of intellectual property are protected worldwide and that inventors and authors are recognized and rewarded for their innovations and creations. (http://www.wipo.int)

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