What is Intellectual Property?
Intellectual Property (IP) refers to all types of confidential knowledge (like trade secrets, designs, know-how etc) and includes patents, design patents, trademarks, domain names and copyrights.
Why is it important?
The registration of Intellectual Property is important as it allows companies to:
- Protect technology - basis for future cash flow
- Patent those solutions that customers will pay for
- Patent solutions that give the company a competitive edge
The goal for ABB's activities in the field of intellectual property rights (IPR) is to effectively protect ABB's development results and new products from unlawful exploitation, to promote sales, support licenses and also to ensure that ABB is not hindered from selling its own products as well as to keep and protect the reputation associated with the name or brand "ABB".
Marketing Communications Issues
Intellectual property has two dimensions for marketing communications - protecting the ABB brand, and respecting the intellectual property of our suppliers, customers and other stakeholders.
Protecting the ABB Brand:
Full compliance with the basic elements section of the VIS not only ensures that the ABB brand is properly represented; it will help protect the brand as a business asset of ABB. Misuse of the ABB logo or Wordmark could jeopardize our legal ability to protect the exclusivity of the ABB brand. Anyone using the ABB brand therefore shares an obligation to represent it correctly in all communications.
All published material must be protected by copyright notice, in the form:
“© Copyright (year of first publication) ABB.” This applies regardless of the publishing location or business unit.
When updated existing materials, you must consider if the copyright year needs to be updated also. If the brochure has been updated only slightly, e.g. correcting typos and minor modifications, use the original year of creation. If the brochure has been totally rewritten, use the year in which you are creating the new material. If it is a mixture, e.g. some parts rewritten including new paragraphs, some parts remaining unchanged, use a combination of years for example "2004 - 2005" or "2004, 2005" (see also the copyright notices of Microsoft or of Lotus Notes to be found under "Help").
Respecting other’s intellectual properties:
As part of Group’s commitment to ethical business conduct for all ABB employees, it is critical that we respect the intellectual property of others. Physical and digital resources that are copyrighted and/or licensed must be properly and legally acquired, with full transparency and documentation when appropriate. This includes, but is not limited to, the following common communications tools:
ABB’s corporate typefaces. These must be purchased and licensed by each individual user. It is a violation of copyright law to freely distribute them, even within the company. It is permissible to send a copy of the fonts along with a project to a printer, to ensure proper reproduction.
Professional graphic arts software. Popular software such as Quark Express, Adobe PageMaker, Photoshop, Corel, etc. is normally licensed for installation at one workstation only. It is unlawful to copy or distribute such resources to secondary workstations, employee computers at home, or any other users without obtaining the proper licensing agreement.
Images, graphics and illustrations. Photographs that are not the copyrighted intellectual property of ABB require licensing to be distributed by ABB. This includes customer-supplied photographs, commercial stock photography (per-incident or royalty free), and other previously published materials, whether physical or electronic. It is the responsibility of each user to understand the license agreement, and to full comply with all terms & conditions.
- When using images provided from a customer, please obtain written documentation of their permission to use the photographs prior to publishing, which clearly states the terms of usage - is the image supplied for a single project, or may ABB use the image freely, in perpetuity? Is additional compensation or notice required?
- When commissioning photography of people, whether ABB employees, professional models or non-ABB persons, you must obtain a signed photo release prior to taking any photographs. A sample form may be downloaded from the link at right.
Most royalty free digital images do not allow the customer-based distribution of their images, whether individual or CD-ROM collections, through any freely downloadable software interface. Please do not load privately licensed commercial stock photography into the ABB Image Bank or Library.
Third Party brands. We must show respect for our business partner’s brand assets, just as we expect third parties to respect the importance of the ABB brand. Any representation of our customer, competitor, supplier or channel partner’s brands should follow all the conventions of their visual identity system. In instances where ABB’s visual identity system conflicts with third parties, please consult your local VIS expert, or group GF-CC for guidance.