The Semiconductor Products (Protection of Topography) Regulations 1987

3.—(1) Where a topography is original and its creator is a qualified person or, in the case of a topography created in the course of employment or pursuant to commission, the employer or commissioner is a qualified person, topography right shall, subject to Regulation 8 below, subsist in the topography in favour of the creator, employer or commissioner, as the case may be.

(2) If paragraph (1) above does not apply, topography right shall subsist where—

(a) the topography is original;

(b) the first commercial exploitation of the topography in the world occurs within the territory of a member state;

(c) the person so exploiting the topography is a qualified person; and

(d) that person at the time of that exploitation has been exclusively authorised to exploit the topography commercially in every member state by, as the case may be, the creator, his employer or the commissioner of the topography or, as the case may be, by a person lawfully claiming through the creator, employer or commissioner;

and in such a case topography right shall, subject to regulation 8 below, subsist in the topography in favour of that person.

(3) A topography is original if it satisfies the requirements of being—

(a) the result of the creator’s own intellectual effort (or of the combined intellectual efforts of the creators if there are more than one), and

(b) not commonplace among creators of topographies or manufacturers of semiconductor products,

or if it consists of a combination of elements in which the combination itself satisfies those requirements, irrespective of whether the several elements do.

(4) For the purposes of this regulation, a person is a qualified person if—

(a) being an individual he is a British citizen or a citizen or subject of another member state or has his habitual residence in the United Kingdom, Gibraltar or another member state, or

(b) being a firm or a body corporate it has a place of business within the United Kingdom, Gibraltar or another member state at which substantial business activity is carried on,

or if he falls within one of the additional classes of qualified persons set out in Part I of Schedule 1 to these Regulations.

(5) In determining whether, for the purposes of paragraph (4)(b) above or Schedule 1 below, a person has a place of business within any territory at which substantial business activity is carried on, no account shall be taken of dealings in goods which are at all material times outside that territory.

(6) For the purposes of this regulation, a topography is created in the course of employment or pursuant to commission if it is created in the course of the creator’s employment under a contract of service or apprenticeship or pursuant to a contract (other than a contract of service or apprenticeship) under which a person other than the creator commissions the creation of the topography and pays or agrees to pay for it in money or money’s worth, unless in either case the contract provides to the contrary; and “employer” and “commissioner” shall be construed accordingly.