A Beginners Guide to Intellectual Property (IP)
What Is Intellectual Property?
Intellectual property (IP) is a collection of intangible assets owned and legally protected by a firm or individual for their sole benefit and against any unauthorized use or application by other parties. IP rights promote and safeguard the implementation of ideas and ideals and allow business owners to pursue their objectives without others taking their ideas away.
Intellectual property encompasses basic ownership rights over ideas, inventions, literary creations, unique names, business models, industrial processes, computer program code, and more.
Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution of the United States grants Congress the power to “promote the progress of science and useful art, by securing for limited times to authors and investors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.”
How to Understand the Concept of IP?
Intellectual property has grown in value and relevance in today's economy. As a result, businesses increasingly emphasize recognizing and preserving intellectual property.
IP values are incredibly crucial for any firm, and preventing others from obtaining particular values from it is the company's primary purpose. Although intellectual property can take various forms, it can sometimes be valued twice as much as a company's tangible assets. At the same time, it signals fierce rivalry, and as a result, certain safeguards are in place.
What are the Types of Intellectual Property Rights?
There are four categories of protection available to an author or inventor of intellectual property: patents, copyrights, trade secrets, and trademarks.
Trademarks
A trademark is a word, name, symbol, or device, which is associated with goods or services, distinguishing a particular good or service from other goods or services. The mark or name must create an association between the goods or services and the owner in the minds of consumers. As soon as a mark or name is adopted by an organization and used publicly in business, that mark or name qualifies for trademark protection.
While rights in trademarks are created once the trademark is being used, to protect those rights, an owner must register the trademark and file an application for registration with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The ® symbol identifies a registered mark. One advantage of registering a mark is that third parties can search a national or international trademark database to discover any claim to trademark ownership and thereby avoid inadvertent or innocent infringement.
Copyrights
A copyright protects expression in the form of original works of authorship. These works of authorship include literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works, both published and unpublished.
Patents
A patent provides protection for a new invention or innovation; business models, industrial processes, and computer program codes, in some instances, can be considered patentable items. The patent confers the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, selling or importing the invention issued by the Patent and Trademark Office. Infringement is the unauthorized use by a third party without express permission that interferes with the exclusive rights of a patent owner.
Trade Secrets
Trade secret protection covers products, processes, methods or even business information used to provide a competitive advantage in business. A trade secret can be almost any item that is not a matter of common knowledge in a specific field or trade. Ideas, inventions, business models, industrial processes, or computer program codes can be covered under trade secret protection.
To qualify as a trade secret, the information must have some recognizable value that is used by an organization to gain a competitive advantage. Unlike trademarks, patents, and copyrights, trade secret law provides non-exclusive protection for the trade secret. In order for the protection to apply, a party must take reasonable steps to maintain the confidential or secret nature of the information it is seeking to protect.
What to Consider When It Comes to IP?
You should first consider whether and what types of IP you may have. Once identified, you must consider how best to protect those rights whether through any necessary governmental filing or application and/or making sure that non-disclosure agreements and confidentiality agreements are in place with any third party with whom you are doing business such as customers and vendors.‘
“When I first started managing a company, I was already familiar with intellectual property and the entire concept and process. You may believe that intellectual property (IP) is difficult to understand at first but after learning more about its divisions and qualities, you will be able to identify and protect your IP by making governmental filings where necessary and making sure that your contractual arrangements with other parties include the appropriate terms and provisions.” - John
