Intellectual property

Intellectual property (IP) is a term referring to creations of the intellect for which a monopoly is assigned to designated owners by law.

Intellectual property rights

Common types of intellectual property rights (IPR) include:

Copyright, patents, and industrial design rights.
The rights that protect trademarks, trade dress, and in some jurisdictions trade secrets.
- All these cover music, literature, and other artistic works.
Discoveries and inventions.
Words, phrases, symbols, and designs.

History

While intellectual property law has evolved over centuries, it was not until the 19th century that the term intellectual property began to be used, and not until the late 20th century that it became commonplace in the majority of the world.

Objectives of intellectual property law

The stated objective of most intellectual property law (with the exception of trademarks) is to "Promote progress."

By exchanging limited exclusive rights for disclosure of inventions and creative works, society and the patentee/copyright owner mutually benefit, and an incentive is created for inventors and authors to create and disclose their work.

Absolute protection

Some commentators have noted that the objective of intellectual property legislators and those who support its implementation appears to be "absolute protection".

"If some intellectual property is desirable because it encourages innovation, they reason, more is better. The thinking is that creators will not have sufficient incentive to invent unless they are legally entitled to capture the full social value of their inventions".

This absolute protection or full value view treats intellectual property as another type of "real" property, typically adopting its law and rhetoric.

International harmonization

Other recent developments in intellectual property law, such as the America Invents Act, stress international harmonization.

External links

Intellectual property @ Wikipedia

Intellectual property

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