Intellectual Property

What is intellectual property? What do intellectual property laws define? What are the categories of intellectual property protections? What international treaties are in place for protection of U.S. intellectual property?
Intellectual property is any creation produced by a person’s mind that has some form of commercial value, such as brand names, films, literary works, and graphics. In addition, intellectual property laws define the rights of ownership to the creator of the intellectual property. For instance, organizations as well as individuals can claim ownership of creative ideas, much like physical property. However, protection varies depending upon which of the five categories the intellectual property belongs.
The first category of intellectual property protection is copyrights, which provides the original author with exclusive rights to publish, produce, reproduce, and sell his or her work. The second category is patents, which prevents someone from using, selling, or producing an invention without the inventor’s explicit permission. The third category is trademarks, which identify specific goods or products and their trade origins, such as Duracell for batteries. The fourth category is service marks, which identify services. The final category of intellectual property is trade secrets, which are details that businesses keep secret to give them a competitive edge.
Unfortunately, without intellectual property laws organizations and individuals would have a hard time protecting their original ideas from unauthorized individuals. Therefore, in hopes of further protecting an organization’s intellectual property abroad, four international treaties called the Berne Convention, the Patent Cooperation Treaty, the Madrid Protocol, and the Paris Convention were created.