IP
What is Intellectual Property?
“Intellectual property” (IP) is a broad term used to refer to a variety of rights most frequently used to protect creative or scientific discoveries and inventions. These rights include: patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, and industrial designs. These laws provide exclusive rights to certain parties and these exclusive rights are generally granted by the government.
The generally accepted purpose of intellectual property protection is to encourage scientific discovery and research and creative pursuits. For example, by giving the author of an original “work” a monopoly over control of the work (to print, copy, sell, license and otherwise profit from his creative efforts), copyright law encourages creativity and pursuit of the arts. If one spent years writing a novel and anyone could copy and print it as their own, there would be little reason for any person to pursue a career in the arts.
However, nearly all IP law provides finite monopolies over the works. While we want to encourage people to be creative, the ability to profit from creativity should be counter-balanced against the ability of the public to enjoy that creativity. In other words, since art also benefits society as a whole, we are not willing to grant exclusive rights in perpetuity. Thus, an artist may benefit from his work for a limited period of time, but her heirs may not live off of that creativity forever.
The big exception to this general rule is trademarks. A trademark, in theory, may last forever – provided the owner of the trademark continues to use the mark in commerce. So, the limiting factor of trademark protection is the use of the mark. If a trademark owner stops using the mark, he also loses rights to that mark. By contrast, there is no requirement that an author sell his book or even have it published. Even if an author does nothing with her work, she may still keep those rights until the exclusivity granted by law expires.
For additional information, please see below:
Copyrights
Patents
Trade Secrets
Industrial Design
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