The Layout-Designs of Integrated Circuits Act 2000 was passed on 30 May 2000 to provide comprehensive protection of layout-designs in Malaysia. As traditional protection afforded to industrial designs and patents cannot be fully applied to layout-designs and due to the uncertainty over whether layout-designs are copyrightable, the new legislation, in essence, fills a lacunae.
Protection is given to original layout-designs where the right-holder was a qualifying person at the time of creation of the layout design.
The layout-design is deemed original if at the time of its creation due to the creator’s own intellectual effort
- It is not commonplace
- It consists of a combination of elements and interconnections that are commonplace, but the combination, taken as a whole is not commonplace.
