Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Types Of Intellectual Property

By Lenie Garner

The number of various types of legal monopolies over creations of mind, both artistic and commercial, and the corresponding fields of law is called Intellectual property (IP). Under intellectual property law, owners are granted particular exclusive rights to a sort of intangible assets, like musical, literary, and artistic works; ideas, breakthroughs, and inventions; and words, phrases, symbols, and designs. Intellectual property has been categorized into four main kinds namely trademarks, patents, trade secrets and copyrights.

Copyrights provide legal rights to both unpublished and published original creations. They are used to protect the authorship of works like poetic compositions, songs, novels, movies etc. It gives legal rights to the owner to make use of the expression of his or her idea in addition to reproducing, distributing, showing or even selling it with absolute discretion within the time decided by law. In most nations, a copyright is valid even after the author's demise for 50 years and any unsolicited usage is considered illegal.

Patents on the other hand are legally defined rights that enable an inventor to prevent others from manufacturing or selling his or her invention. They offer protection not just for technological inventions and scientific theories but also for new discoveries in the field of biology. The protection cover provided by a patent in most countries is for a period of 20 years, after which the invention no longer remains the exclusive property of the inventor.

Trade secrets are certain confidential pieces of information that help a firm to gain an edge over its rivals in the market. Trade secrets can be anything ranging from software algorithms to the recipe of a food item and even details such as contacts of most important customers. In most cases, trade secrets are issues pertaining to in house management of the firm, which do not involve any kind of government interference. The common measures taken by a company to safeguard trade secrets include confining the information to a chosen handful of executives, or even keeping it under lock and key in some bank vault.

Trademarks are words, logos and designs that symbolize a particular brand or company and differentiate it from the rival brands. Trademarks act as a quick recall of the manufacturer in the customer's mind and create a specific brand identity. Usually, a registered trademark can get a renewal after a span of 10 years.

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