The number of certain types of legal monopolies over creations of idea, both artistic and commercial, and the corresponding fields of law is called Intellectual property (IP). Under intellectual property law, owners are granted particular sole rights to a variety of intangible assets, like musical, literary, and artistic works; ideas, breakthroughs, and inventions; and words, phrases, symbols, and designs. There are four main types of intellectual property – copyrights, patents, trademarks and trade secrets.
Copyrights deal with safety of original literary and other creative works. They protect the ownership of works of art like musical scores, poetry, films, novels etc. They permit the users to exclusively use several forms of their idea in different mediums with exclusive legal rights of replication, adaptation, sale etc for a prescribed span of time. In most countries, a copyright survives for fifty years even after the author\’s death and any unlawful use within this time span is considered an offence.
Patents are lawful and registered rights that allow creators to stop others from manufacturing or promoting their invention. They provide safety not just for technological breakthroughs and scientific theories but also for discoveries such as biological ones. In most nations, patent cover is available for a restricted span 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 enable a firm to score over its competitors in the market. Trade secrets can be anything ranging from software algorithms to the recipe of a food item and even information such as contacts of most important customers. In most cases, trade secrets are matters relating to in house management of the firm, which do not involve any type of government intervention. The usual way of securing trade secrets is by allowing access to only a few important personnel and not everyone, or by depositing it safely in a bank along with other valuables and documents.
Trademarks include words, logos and graphics that symbolize a particular brand or firm and separate it from the competing brands. Trademarks develop an exclusive brand identity for a firm and generate instant recall in the minds of consumers. Generally, a registered trademark can get a renewal after a period of a decade.
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