What is Intellectual Property?

28 March 2017

Intellectual property ("IP") is the legal protection of intellectual assets.  It is the collective name for the bundle of rights that prevent unauthorized exploitation of intellectual assets. Examples include:

• patents for new inventions;
• registered trade marks for distinctive signs;
• registered designs for the appearance of new products;
• copyrights for works of art and literature such as broadcasts, choreography, films, music, novels, plays, recordings or software;
• rights in performances for actors, dancers, musicians and singers performances;
• unregistered design rights for the shape or configuration of articles or parts of articles;
• the action for passing off to restrain the use of confusingly similar signs or get-up; and
• the duty of confidence to restrain the use or disclosure of secret information that has been imparted in confidence.

Each of those rights operates in a different way. 

Patents, for example, create monopolies of the making, disposal, marketing, use, importation or possession of specified products or of the use of patented processes including the marketing. disposal, importation, use or possession of products obtained directly from such processes. Such monopolies may be infringed by making, importing, marketing, distributing or using a patented product or a patented process even if the infringer was unaware of the patent or believed reasonably that his product fell outside its specification.

Copyrights, on the other hand, prohibit copying, publishing, renting, lending, communicating or adapting works in which copyright subsists but they do not prevent the making, marketing or distribution of similar works so long as there is no copying of, or reference to, such works.

Some rights require registration with the British, European Union or some other intellectual property office. Others arise spontaneously when certain conditions exist.

Further Reading

Date	Author	Title	Publication
28.03.2017	Jane Lambert	What are Intellectual Assets?	NIPC Law
29.01.2017		IP Glossary
25.11.2016		Intellectual Property	NIPC Branding
07.08.2016		What is Intellectual Property?	NIPC News
	IPO	What Intellectual Property is	GOV.UK
		What is Intellectual Property?	WIPO
		What are intellectual property rights?	WTO

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Jane Lambert