Intellectual property (IP) is a number of certain types of legal monopolies over creations of the idea, both artistic and commercial, and the related areas of law. Under intellectual property law, owners have exclusive rights to several intangibles such as musical, literary, and artistic works; ideas, discoveries, and inventions; and words. phrases, symbols, and designs. Copyrights, trademarks, patents and trade secrets are four main kinds of intellectual property.
Copyrights protect original works, either published or yet to be published. They provide legal safeguards for original works of creativity like novels, movies, music, and so on. They allow the owners to exclusively use several forms of their creation in one or the other medium with sole legal authority over replication, adaptation, sale etc for a prescribed period of time. In most countries, a copyright survives for fifty years following the author's demise and any unlawful use within this period is considered an offence.
Patents on the other hand are lawful and official rights that enable an inventor to prevent others from reproducing or marketing his or her invention. They can usually be applied to cases such as significant biological discoveries, scientific theories and technological breakthroughs. In most countries, patent cover is available for a restricted period of 20 years and the owner loses his sole ownership over the invention following the end of this period.
Trade secrets are those classified pieces of information that help a company to score over its competitors in the market. A trade secret can be anything from a confidential report to a cooking recipe, or a database containing addresses and phone numbers of valuable customers. Generally, trade secrets are not governed by the state machinery but by rigid internal rules and by-laws of the particular firm. The most common means of securing trade secrets is by confining the information to only a few important executives and not everyone, or by depositing it safely in a bank together with other valuable items and documents.
Trademarks, on the other hand, include one or more words, designs or logos that are associated with the firm on the whole or its products, which distinguish them from the competition. Trademarks create a unique brand identity that enables the consumers recall or identify the manufacturer on seeing the trademark. Generally, a trademark registration remains valid for a decade after which it has to be renewed.
Copyrights protect original works, either published or yet to be published. They provide legal safeguards for original works of creativity like novels, movies, music, and so on. They allow the owners to exclusively use several forms of their creation in one or the other medium with sole legal authority over replication, adaptation, sale etc for a prescribed period of time. In most countries, a copyright survives for fifty years following the author's demise and any unlawful use within this period is considered an offence.
Patents on the other hand are lawful and official rights that enable an inventor to prevent others from reproducing or marketing his or her invention. They can usually be applied to cases such as significant biological discoveries, scientific theories and technological breakthroughs. In most countries, patent cover is available for a restricted period of 20 years and the owner loses his sole ownership over the invention following the end of this period.
Trade secrets are those classified pieces of information that help a company to score over its competitors in the market. A trade secret can be anything from a confidential report to a cooking recipe, or a database containing addresses and phone numbers of valuable customers. Generally, trade secrets are not governed by the state machinery but by rigid internal rules and by-laws of the particular firm. The most common means of securing trade secrets is by confining the information to only a few important executives and not everyone, or by depositing it safely in a bank together with other valuable items and documents.
Trademarks, on the other hand, include one or more words, designs or logos that are associated with the firm on the whole or its products, which distinguish them from the competition. Trademarks create a unique brand identity that enables the consumers recall or identify the manufacturer on seeing the trademark. Generally, a trademark registration remains valid for a decade after which it has to be renewed.
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