What is Intellectual Property?
Property is a resource of financial value and something that an organisation needs in order to do its work. Intellectual property can set organisations apart from competitors and help maintain longevity and profitability, and this is exactly why it needs protecting just as much as the physical assets. Employees are the brainpower behind intellectual property […]
What Should You do if There is a Conflict of Interest?
A conflict of interest is when an individual has competing interests or loyalties, often between professional and personal affairs. This could two relationships that might compete for a person’s loyalties – this could be a conflict between loyalty to an employer and loyalty to a family member. The conflict of interest causes an employee to […]
What is Copyright?
Copyright protects your work and stops others from using it without your permission. Unlike patents and trade marks, you get copyright protection automatically – there isn’t a register of copyright works in the UK and you don’t have to apply or pay a fee. You automatically get copyright protection when you create: Original literary, dramatic, […]
What is a Trade Mark?
Trade marks are the badges of origin for a company, they distinguish one trader from another. A trade mark is generally a word, phrase, symbol, design, or a combination thereof, that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods of one party from those of others. By covering designs, words and phrases, trade marks protect […]
What is the Penalty for Insider Trading?
Illegal insider trading is when non-public information is used by a company ‘insider’ such as an employee to make a profit through the trading of company stocks and shares. Insider trading was the focus of the 2019 ITV drama, Cleaning Up, starring Sheridan Smith. The programme featured two cleaners that used their place within a […]
What is a Patent?
A patent is granted by the government to an inventor to stop others from making, using or selling the invention without their permission. When a patent is granted, the invention becomes the property of the inventor. This means it can be bought, sold, rented or hired just like any other form of property or asset. […]
What is the Difference Between Unethical and Illegal Business Practices?
Our Ethics Courses In order to understand the difference between something being ‘illegal’ or being ‘unethical’, we have to understand what these terms mean. ‘Unethical’ defines as something that is morally wrong, whilst something being ‘illegal’ means it is against the law. In an illegal act, the decision-making factor is the law. For an unethical […]
What is a Non-Disclosure Agreement?
The best way to keep something confidential is not to disclose it in the first place – keeping it on a need-to-know basis between a small group of people. If you want to keep something private, you should use a non-disclosure agreement (sometimes called a confidentiality agreement). In some situations, you may have to tell […]
What is Insider Trading?
Insider trading is the process of trading company stocks and shares through individuals with access to non-public information about the company, otherwise known as ‘insider’ information. The huge development in internet usage has led to an acceleration in the speed that insider trading can occur and makes it more difficult to control. This may sound […]
Which Industries are most at Risk of Modern Slavery?
Our Modern Slavery Courses Newspapers constantly brandish headlines concerning modern slavery discoveries in multinational companies’ supply chains. Certain industries are more at risk than others, namely the consumer sector and construction industries. Modern slavery is the exploitation of people and can be differentiated into a number of categories. Labour exploitation is a form of modern slavery that […]
