Four Types of Intellectual Property rights

The title grants its owner the right to exclude anyone from profiting from the patent’s unique invention. It safeguards the decorative or functional elements.

Fremont, CA: Intellectual property is described by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) as “mind creations, such as inventions; literary and artistic works; designs; and symbols, titles, and images used in commerce.” In its most basic form, intellectual property refers to a name, an innovation, a design, or some other type of development over which a company or an entity has legal ownership.

Here are four main types of intellectual property:

Trademark

A company uses a unique symbol to identify its services or products. Any specific word (or words), markings, or other features may be used as this symbol—this aids in distinguishing the company’s services and products from those of its rivals.

Patent

The title grants its owner the right to exclude anyone from profiting from the patent’s unique invention. It safeguards the decorative or functional elements. A patent gives the owner the right to prevent anyone from making, using, selling, or even importing the patented invention. In return, the entire disclosure of the invention is given, as well as all technical information.

Trade Secrets

This term applies to commercially valuable proprietary and confidential knowledge. It’s the knowledge that isn’t widely known, and the owner (usually a company) takes precautions to keep it that way. The trade secret is only protected until the knowledge is no longer valuable or the measures taken to keep it secret are no longer followed.

Copyright

The term used in law to describe the rights granted to authors for their original works. These works can be literary, creative, or musical. This gives them power of how their inventions are used in the future. There are two types of copyright protection: moral rights, which guarantee that the writer has the right to be known as the author of the work and to object to any distortions, and economic rights, which enable the creator to control how the work is used and derive financial benefits from it. Intellectual property is described by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) as “mind creations, such as inventions; literary and artistic works; designs; and symbols, titles, and images used in commerce.” In its most basic form, intellectual property refers to a name, an innovation, a design, or some other type of development over which a company or an entity has legal ownership.