As endowed by Articles 139 and 140 in the Basic Law, Hong Kong should develop appropriate policies as well as afford legal protection for intellectual property rights. In light of this, the Intellectual Property Department (IPD) was established on 2 July 1990 to facilitate the legislation and enforcement of policies as well as promotion and education among the community in regard to intellectual property protection.
Patent law defines an inventor of a patentable invention as someone who conceives original, useful and non-obvious idea. An inventor must contribute to the conception of the invention. It should not be confused with the authorship of a scientific publication. The correct inventors must be named on a patent or the patent risks being invalidated.
Please plan to submit your invention disclosure to RIO at least 3 months prior to the expected public disclosure of your invention. Premature public disclosure may jeopardize the subsequent patent filing of your invention.
In case of doubt, please contact:
Mr. Trevor Chuang
trevor.chuang@polyu.edu.hk
+852 3400 2812
Please refer to Item 4 in the Regulation on the Management of Intellectual Property (RMIP) for more information.
When it is necessary to disclose your ideas to an outside party,a non-disclosure agreement is one of the best ways to ensure your ideas and confidential information kept under wraps. Premature public disclosure may jeopardize the subsequent patent filing of your invention.
Please refer to Item 5 in the RMIP for more information.
The template NDA prepared by the Legal, Risk and Compliance Unit of the EVP Office (LRC) available at ECM can be used.
The revenues are distributed as stipulated in Item 9 of the RMIP.
If you have any questions over your IP disclosure or application procedures, please refer to the RMIP and the Policy on Ownership of Intellectual Property (PIP).
If you would like to seek further advice, please contact:
Mr. Trevor Chuang
trevor.chuang@polyu.edu.hk
+852 3400 2812
Copyright is an automatic right that arises upon the creation of work by its author; registration or formal notification is therefore not necessary in Hong Kong.
While there is no legal requirement to put copyright right notice on the work, the said notice is recommended to inform the public that the work is protected by copyright and to warn potential infringers. Copyright notices to show willfulness and could minimize the chances of an alleged infringer claiming being unaware of the owner’s potential rights or had no reason to believe that copyright subsisted in the work in question, and thereby avoiding liability for damages in copyright infringement cases in Hong Kong.
A copyright notice indicates who the copyright owner is and when the copyright was created. It mainly has the following elements:
(a) the copyright symbol “©” or the word copyright
(b) the year when the copyright work was first published (not necessarily to indicate the date)
- if the copyright work involves older materials alongside more recent materials, you may indicate a range of years e.g., © 2020-2021 The Hong Kong Polytechnic Universit
(c) the copyright owner’s name
- this can be an individual’s name or name of a company/organization (please refer to PolyU’s Policy on Ownership of Intellectual Property)
(d) (optional) the statement of rights to declare the type of rights that you retain in your copyright work e.g. “all rights reserved” (commonly used to indicate that the copyright owner does not waive any claim to assert his/her ownership and exclusive exclusive rights to disallow any unauthorized reproduction of work.), “some rights reserved”, “no rights reserved”
Please note that it is not compulsory to declare the type of rights in the notice. Under the copyright law in Hong Kong, all copyright owner’s rights are reserved by default. The absence of a copyright notice nor a "rights reserved” notice will not prejudice a copyright owner’s rights.
There is no specific rule as to where to put the copyright right notice on the work. As the purpose of the copyright notice is to notify others about the copyright owner’s rights, it is best to display the notice at a location that is best to alert others in a conspicuous manner.
(a) Printed publication
Typically, the notice could be placed on the title page, the first or last page of the main body of the work, or the front or back cover of the publication.
(b) Website
Many websites include the copyright notice in the footer of the homepage or a specific copyright page / terms and condition page / legal notice page. It is also possible to include the notice in the footer of every website page.
(c) Video
The copyright notice of a video is often displayed in the bottom right corner of the video.
A phonorecord refers to a physical object that contains a sound recording, such as a digital audio file, CD, LP, etc. A phonogram copyright notice includes the phonogram copyright symbol is “℗”, the first publication and the name of the owner of the sound recording. It is typically printed on a label or container of the phonorecords.
Sound recordings should also include a phonogram copyright notice for the recording itself. Whereas the copyright notice is used to protect the sound recording’s lyric sheets, cover design, or other printed material included with the sound recording, e.g. © 2020 The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, ℗ 2020 The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
There are two types of patents in Hong Kong, namely standard patents with a longer patent protection term of up to 20 years for your inventions, and short-term patents having a relatively shorter protection term of up to 8 years.
Standard Patent
- “original grant patent” which can be directly filed in the Hong Kong SAR for a standard patent (“standard patent (O)”); or
- “re-registration patent” (“standard patent (R)”) which can be registered on the basis of a corresponding patent application for the same invention previously filed with a designated patent office outside the Hong Kong HKSAR.
Short term patent
you may opt to seek a short-term patent having a relatively shorter protection term of up to 8 years.
