Intellectual Property

Intellectual property, often called IP, gives creators and businesses exclusive rights to use and benefit from their ideas for a period of time. This encourages innovation and creativity, because people can earn a return on their work.

The main types are patents, which protect inventions; trademarks, which protect brand names, logos and slogans; copyright, which protects original creative works such as books, music, films and software; design rights, which protect the appearance of products; and trade secrets, which protect confidential business information.

For example, a pharmaceutical company can patent a new medicine, giving it the exclusive right to sell it for a number of years and recover its research costs.

Intellectual property can be extremely valuable. For many technology, media and consumer companies, IP is worth more than their physical assets. It can be used directly, licensed to others for royalties or sold. Protecting IP often involves registering it, monitoring for infringement and taking legal action when necessary. Rules and protection periods differ between types of IP and between countries.