4 Types Of Intellectual Property If you think of starting a new business or has one currently, then it will be important that you make yourself familiar with what is known as intellectual property. Basically, this is a phrase that is used to describe legal rights in which people have a hold over creations of the mind like writing, works of art, designs, music, ideas, choreography or inventions. Believe it or not, there are 4 types of intellectual property and these include copyrights, patents, trade secrets and trademarks. Number 1. Copyright – this is a kind of intellectual property that is protecting original authors of both unpublished and published creations. The rights of these works remain only to the passions of the creator for specified period of time under copyright law. As soon as the time period elapsed, then these works will be open to others for republication and reproduction. Number 2. Patents – in reality, these are legal property rights being applied to the inventions than the works of any type of literacy or art and they should be distributed by the US Patent and Trademark Office. In most instances, the patents can be applied to items such as processes, manufacturing designs, machines, compositions of matter or biological discoveries. Similar to copyrights, patents are also available to inventors for a set period of time before it expires. In general, patents could potentially last for up to 20 years after the date to which the application for patent is filed.
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Number 3. Trade Secrets – these are designs, practices, processes, recipes, formulas or even ideas that are used by a company that lets it gain leverage in the industry. Trade secrets most of the time are hidden by a person’s own means when compared to being protected through government policies like copyrights or patents. To give you an example for self protection used often with trade secrets, it can be done by locking pertinent info away in a bank vault. But the moment they are leaked to the public, anyone can make use of them as these trade secrets are lacking of legal protection.
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Number 4. Trademarks – these normally include phrases, words, symbols, designs or even devices that are used in line with a certain good or brand to distinguish it from other merchandise of that industry. Truth is, trademarks are used for identification purposes and protected legally the moment they have been registered with US Patent and Trademark Office. Whether you believe it or not, many people are not aware of the value as well as the presence of these assets because it compose of expertise, knowledge, now-how that only high qualified employees have. Basically, having such gives a company the edge over its competition.