Intellectual Property Basics: Trademarks, Copyright and Designs

Copyright protects your website copy, photos, code, artwork and marketing material automatically, from the moment you create them, at no cost — but it won't protect your business name, and it usually won't cover work you paid a contractor to make. Trade marks, registered designs and patents all have to be applied for and paid for. Here's what each one covers, who owns what, and where small businesses quietly lose IP they thought they had.

The four types at a glance

Type	What it protects	How you get it	How long it lasts	Cost (as at September 2026)
Copyright	The expression of ideas — text, photos, artwork, code, video, music, plans	Automatic on creation. No register exists in Australia	Usually the author's life plus 70 years	Free
Trade mark	Brand identifiers — names, logos, slogans, shapes, sounds — for specific goods and services	Apply to IP Australia	10 years, renewable indefinitely	From $250 per class to file, $400 per class to renew
Registered design	The visual appearance of a manufactured product — shape, pattern, ornamentation	Apply to IP Australia	5 years, renewable once to a maximum of 10	From $200 to register, $500 to certify
Patent	How an invention works — a device, process, method or substance	Apply to IP Australia	20 years (25 for pharmaceuticals)	Provisional $100, standard application $400 online, $550 to request examination

Three others sit outside that list: confidential information and trade secrets (protected by contracts and secrecy, not registration), plant breeder's rights, and circuit layout rights. Most small businesses only ever deal with the first two rows.

Copyright: free, automatic, and easy to give away

Copyright exists the moment an idea takes material form. Write the quote, take the photo, record the video, save the file — it's protected. Australia has no copyright register, so there's nothing to lodge and no fee to pay. The © symbol isn't required either, though "© Your Business Name 2026" in your website footer is a cheap deterrent and makes ownership obvious.

For a typical small business, copyright covers your website copy, blog posts, photos of your work, the artwork in your logo, quotes and proposals, training manuals, spreadsheet templates, software code, and video content. It runs for the author's life plus 70 years under the Copyright Act 1968, which in practice means forever as far as your business is concerned.

What it doesn't cover trips people up more often. Copyright protects the expression, not the idea. It won't protect a business concept, a pricing method, a service model, a list of ingredients, or the facts in your data. It won't protect names, titles or short slogans — those are too brief to be a literary work, which is precisely why trade marks exist.

Moral rights are separate and can't be bought

Authors also hold moral rights: to be named as author, not to have work falsely attributed, and to object to derogatory treatment of the work. These are personal and stay with the creator even after copyright is assigned. If you buy the copyright in a set of photos and plan to crop, recolour or overlay them heavily, ask for a written moral rights consent in the same agreement. It costs nothing to include.

Trade marks: the only thing that protects your brand name

Registering a business name with ASIC gives you no ownership of it. Neither does registering a company name, or buying the domain. All three are administrative records. Only a registered trade mark gives you exclusive rights to use a name, logo or slogan for the goods and services you registered it under, and only a trade mark gives you a straightforward way to make a copycat stop.

A standard online application costs from $250 per class if you use IP Australia's picklist of goods and services descriptions, or $330 per class through TM Headstart ($200 for the pre-assessment plus $130 to convert it into a full application). So a cafe registering in two classes — say class 30 for coffee and class 43 for cafe services — pays $500 through the standard route, or $660 through TM Headstart. Renewal a decade later is $400 per class, which is $800 for those two classes (fees as at September 2026).

Before you spend anything, run the name through TM Checker, IP Australia's free availability tool. It flags whether your proposed mark is likely to hit trouble at examination and estimates the cost. The full process, including what happens if you get an adverse report, is covered in our guide to trade marking your business name.

Unregistered brands aren't defenceless — passing off and the misleading conduct provisions of the Australian Consumer Law can help — but you have to prove your reputation first, and that's a far more expensive fight than a letter pointing at a registration number.

Registered designs: how a product looks

If you manufacture something with a distinctive appearance — furniture, packaging, jewellery, a tool handle, a piece of equipment — a registered design protects its shape, configuration, pattern and ornamentation. It doesn't protect how it works. That's a patent.

Two traps here. First, registration alone doesn't give you anything you can enforce. You have to request examination and get the design certified — $500 as at September 2026 — before you can act against a copier. Threatening someone off an uncertified registration can expose you to an unjustified threats claim.

Second, timing. A design has to be new and distinctive, so publishing it before you file normally destroys it. Since 10 March 2022 Australia has had a 12-month grace period, meaning a disclosure on or after that date doesn't automatically sink your own application if you file within 12 months. Don't lean on it if you plan to sell overseas: plenty of countries have no equivalent, so a product launch in Australia can still kill your options abroad. File first, launch second.

Patents: expensive, slow, and worth advice first

A standard patent protects how an invention works and lasts 20 years. A provisional application costs $100 and buys you 12 months to test the idea while holding your priority date — the cheapest useful step in the whole system. Costs climb quickly from there once attorney fees, examination and annual renewals are added. Innovation patents, the cheaper alternative, were phased out; the last day to file one was 25 August 2021.

If you think you have something patentable, speak to a registered patent attorney before you demonstrate it, pitch it or post it. Public disclosure before filing can destroy your rights permanently.

Who owns IP your contractors create

This is where small businesses lose the most, and it comes down to one distinction.

Employees. Copyright in work created by an employee in the course of their employment belongs to the business by default, under section 35(6) of the Copyright Act 1968. Put an IP clause in the employment contract anyway — it covers the edges, like work done outside hours on your equipment.

Contractors. The contractor owns it. Your web developer owns the site code. Your graphic designer owns the logo artwork. Your photographer owns the photos. Paying the invoice buys you a licence to use the work for its obvious purpose, not ownership of it. Section 196(3) of the Copyright Act is blunt: an assignment of copyright has no effect unless it's in writing and signed by the person giving it up.

That matters the day you want to sell the business, licence your branding to a franchisee, register your logo as a trade mark, or move your website to a new developer who wants to reuse the code.

What an IP assignment clause needs

A clear description of the material being created
An assignment of all IP rights, including future copyright, to your business
The trigger — on creation, or on final payment (say which)
A written consent to acts that would otherwise breach moral rights
A warranty that the work is original and doesn't infringe anyone else's IP
An obligation to sign any further documents needed to perfect the transfer

Sort this out before the work starts, when you still have leverage. Our guide to business contracts covers where the clause sits, and employee versus contractor explains why the classification decides your default position.

While you're at it, check who the registrant is on your domain, Google Business Profile, social accounts and hosting. Agencies routinely register these in their own name. It isn't strictly IP, but it's lost the same way.

Confidential information and trade secrets

Your client list, supplier terms, pricing model, formulations and internal processes usually aren't covered by any registered right. Protection comes from two things: a written confidentiality obligation, and actually keeping the information confidential. Use a short NDA before you show anything sensitive to a potential partner, manufacturer or buyer, put confidentiality clauses in staff and contractor agreements, and limit access. A "secret" half your industry already knows won't be protected by a court.

Respecting other people's IP

Infringement claims arrive as invoices far more often than as lawsuits, and the invoices are real.

Images. Google Images is not a stock library. Buy from a stock site and read the licence — editorial-only images can't promote a product, and many licences cap print runs or exclude merchandise.

Fonts. A desktop licence lets you use a font in design files. It does not automatically let you embed it in a website, an app or a product you sell. Foundries do audit this. Check before your designer embeds the file.

Music. Instagram treats business account posts as commercial content, so business accounts are limited to the Meta Sound Collection rather than the full trending catalogue. Those tracks are cleared for Facebook and Instagram only — the licence doesn't travel with the video to TikTok, YouTube or your own site. For anything cross-platform, use a paid production music library and keep the licence receipt.

Other people's brands. Don't use a competitor's trade mark in your ad copy, product titles or metadata to catch their traffic.

Legal pages. Copying a competitor's terms or privacy policy is copyright infringement and usually a bad legal fit. Start from our website terms and conditions guide instead.

Key takeaways

Copyright is automatic and free, but it protects expression, not names, ideas or business models — your brand needs a trade mark.
Contractors own what they create for you unless they sign a written assignment; a paid invoice transfers nothing.
An ASIC business name or company name registration gives you no ownership of the name at all.
A registered design must be examined and certified before you can enforce it, and you should file before you go public.
Trade secrets are protected by contracts and secrecy, not by any register — use an NDA before you show anyone anything.
Licences on stock images, fonts and music are conditions, not suggestions, and rights holders do chase small businesses.

Where to get help

IP Australia (ipaustralia.gov.au) — the register, forms and fees for trade marks, designs and patents, plus the free TM Checker and Australian Trade Mark Search tools. Its IP First Response service covers your options when you think someone has copied you.
business.gov.au — plain-English overviews of IP for business and links to state advisory services.
The Australian Copyright Council — free information sheets on ownership, licensing and moral rights.
A registered trade mark or patent attorney — before you file a design or patent, or if your trade mark hits an adverse examination report.
A commercial lawyer — for IP assignment clauses, NDAs, licensing agreements, and any letter of demand you send or receive.
Your accountant — IP you buy or licence has tax and asset implications, especially when you sell or restructure.