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What is Intellectual Property?
Home » Entrepreneurship » Intellectual Property » What is Intellectual Property?The U.S. legal system developed the concept of intellectual property to encourage the creation of valuable ideas and protect them from being stolen.
In law, particularly in common law jurisdictions, intellectual property refers to a legal authorization which sometimes attaches to the expressed form of an idea, or to some other abstract subject matter. In general terms this legal authorization sometimes enables its holder to exercise exclusive control over the use of the intellectual property. The term intellectual property reflects the idea that the subject matter of this property is the product of the mind or the intellect, and that once established; such authorizations are generally treated as equivalent to physical property and may be enforced as such by the courts. Various schools of thought are critical of the concept of intellectual property, some of which characterize it as intellectual protectionism.
As defined by Article 2, section (viii), of the Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization, done at Stockholm, July 14, 1967, "intellectual
property" shall include the rights relating to: literary, artistic and scientific works, performances of performing artists, phonograms, and broadcasts, inventions in all fields of human endeavor, scientific discoveries, industrial designs, trademarks, service marks, and commercial names and designations, protection against unfair competition, and all other rights resulting from intellectual activity in the industrial, scientific, literary or artistic fields.
Intellectual property is a creation of the intellect that has commercial value. It includes copyrighted property such as literary or artistic works, and ideological property, such as patents, titles of origin, business methods, as well as industrial processes. Intellectual property is a term often used to refer generically to property rights created through intellectual and/or discovery efforts of a creator that are generally protectable under patent, trademark, copyright, trade secret, trade dress or other law.
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