Types Of Intellectual Property
Foreword By The Editor
What follows is a clearly laid out article by Lani Garner on the four different types of intellectual property recognized by law in most developed countries. Obviously, from the point of view of most readers of 101 Newsletter Answers, the section on copyright is likely to be the most relevant to their own field of endeavor. However, since most of our readers also run a business of some kind, I thought the article may prove useful as a whole.
Mike Alexander
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IP Types
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Intellectual property (IP) is a list of distinct kinds of legal monopolies over the creation of ideas, both artistic and commercial, and the corresponding fields of law. Under IP law, proprietors are given particular exclusive rights to a variety of intangibles, like musical, literary, and artistic works; ideas, breakthroughs, and inventions; and words, phrases, symbols, and designs. There are four main kinds of intellectual property: trade secrets, patents, copyrights, and trademarks.
Copyrights
Copyrights safeguard original creations, either published or unpublished. They protect the owner’s rights over pieces like musical scores, poetry, movies, novels etc. They allow the owners to exclusively use several forms of their idea in different media with sole legal rights of replication, adaptation, sale etc for a prescribed span of time. The owner has an authority over his creation for more than 50 years, which is valid even after his demise and any infringement of the work within this time is actionable.
Patents
Patents are lawful and registered rights that allow inventors to prevent others from manufacturing or marketing their invention. Typically they are applicable to scientific theories, technological inventions and also biological discoveries. The legal cover offered by a patent in most nations is for a span of 20 years, after which the invention ceases to be the sole property of the patent owner.
Trade Secrets
Trade secrets are proprietary information that can be used by the firm to stand out in the industry. Trade secrets can be anything ranging from software algorithms to the recipe of a food item and even information like contact numbers of most important clients. Generally, trade secrets are not governed by any kind of state machinery but by strict internal standards and policies of the particular company. The most common means of securing trade secrets is by allowing access to only a few important executives, or by depositing it safely in a bank along with other valuable items and documents.
Trademarks
Trademarks cover words, symbols or graphics that are used in connection with a specific brand or product in order to distinguish it from the products of rivals. They identify a unique brand that enables people to recall or identify the service or manufacturer concerned. Usually trademarks hold good for 10 years after which a renewal is often required.
About The Author
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