Intellectual property, often known as IP, allows people to own their creativity and innovation in the same way that they can own physical property. The owner of IP can control and be rewarded for its use, and this encourages further innovation and creativity to the benefit of us all. Intellectual Property as the name defines is the property of mind. IPR is the rights granted to the individual possessing the intellectual property to exploit the property for the use of public and there by benefiting from it. Intellectual property is used like a physical property where the owner gets rewarded for its use encouraging further creativity to the benefit of human beings.
In some cases IP gives rise to protection for ideas but in other areas there will have to be more elaboration of an idea before protection can arise. It will often not be possible to protect IP and gain IP rights (or IPRs) unless they have been applied for and granted, but some IP protection such as copyright arises automatically, without any registration, as soon as there is a record in some form of what has been created.
Intellectual property refers to creations of the mind: inventions, literary and artistic works, and symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce.
Intellectual property is divided into two categories:
- Industrial property, which includes inventions (patents), trademarks, industrial designs, and geographic indications of source; and
- Copyright, which includes literary and artistic works such as novels, poems and plays, films, musical works, artistic works such as drawings, paintings, photographs and sculptures, and architectural designs. Rights related to copyright include those of performing artists in their performances, producers of phonograms in their recordings, and those of broadcasters in their radio and television programs.
