Intellectual property as intangible assets, intellectual property, including patents, trademarks, copyrights, and registered and unregistered design rights. Intellectual property rights is in fact not real property, it is more of a monopoly privilege – a period of time for the results of the activities of the monopoly of wisdom. Empirical evidence shows that intellectual property protection to ensure that the interests of creators of intellectual activity are protected, and intelligence activities to encourage more production, thus promoting social and economic development play a role, other public also benefit from the protection of intellectual property. The interests of intellectual property owners can charge to users, or exclude others within a period of time copying the competition to be protected.
By granting monopoly rights, the creators of intellectual activities to obtain compensation for their labors. For example, a manufacturer may develop a new product into a 10-year energy and money, if not intellectual property protection for its new product, the end result is likely to launch its new product, other manufacturers can not any case the cost of copying the results immediately, which can therefore sell at lower prices the same or similar products, damage to the original author’s interests. Examples of this are common in the pharmaceutical industry: pharmaceutical companies in many developed countries complain that they spend a lot of money invested years of effort and developed the drug after the end it may be counterfeit pharmaceutical companies in third world countries, so that these original drugs plant interests, however, benefit the Third World people.
The existence of intellectual property rights to protect the interests of creators: the prescribed time, the original will be relatively monopoly (anti-patent) the legal effect of the abuse of intellectual property rights, there are constraints), any other person can not participate in the manufacture of the same product, unless authorization of rights holders. Creators can charge users. From the long term, the public will also benefit: Although in the short term they can not enjoy a more expensive product, but this was able to stimulate more innovation on the original investment, leading to the future more, better and cheaper products was born. The relative monopoly in intellectual property is also considered benign: If the creators of intellectual activities set too high price, only may stimulate other manufacturers to develop a similar but cheaper products, the ultimate victims are the creators of their own, and Consumers will always be the beneficiaries.
But in recent years, many people began to believe that with the excessive expansion of intellectual property protection, intellectual property created at the beginning of the concept of purpose has changed: The purpose of intellectual property has changed from protecting the public interest to protect the interests of knowledge creation. Worried about intellectual property rights have been violated in the public interest to people, the most famous is the initiator of the free software movement, Richard Stallman.
Intellectual property rights are divided into two categories:
Industrial property, which includes inventions (patents), trademarks, industrial designs and geographical indications of origin, etc. Patent protection is generally 20 years, at least 10 years of industrial design protection, and trademark protection may be indefinite;
Copyright, which includes literary and artistic works: such as novels, poems and plays, films, musical works; works of art such as drawing, painting, photography and sculpture and architectural design. And copyright-related rights include the rights of performing artists in their performances, producers of phonograms in their phonograms and broadcasting organizations the right to their radio and television rights. Copyright until at least 50 years after the death of the author.
There is also a special kind of intellectual property: trade secrets. Companies can identify any of the information as “trade secrets”, to prohibit access to these secrets will reveal the secret out, usually by contract, to achieve this purpose. As long as people come into contact with the secret sign before access to these confidential contract or agree to keep confidential, they must be compliance. The benefits of trade secrets is no time limit, but anything can be identified as trade secrets. For example, Coca-Cola formula in the case of trade secrets, more than 100 years the outside world can not learn all the ingredients of Coca-Cola.
Intellectual property has the following characteristics:
Exclusive: In addition to the right to consent or by law, the rights of any person other than the person shall possess or use that right. This shows that unless, through “compulsory licensing”, “fair use”, or “acquisition” of such proceedings, or exclusive or monopoly rights are strictly protected proprietary rights, others shall not be violated.
Regional: that unless countries have signed international conventions or bilateral reciprocal agreements, by a State of a right protected by law only in the range of legal effect.
Timing: the legal protection of the rights, provide for a certain period, national laws to protect the length of the period may be the same, or may not be exactly the same, only the participation in international agreements or international application, the fishes of a right a unified term of protection.
General legislation to protect intellectual property rights is mainly based on the following grounds:
Created to protect the creator of its moral and economic rights and the rights of the public to use these to create;
Promote creativity and dissemination of results and applications, to encourage fair trade, to promote economic and social development;
Promoting foreign direct investment, joint ventures and licenses granted in the form of transfer of technology.
The rights protected by law may be transferred, sold, rented, or even in some countries can be secured with as ordinary assets. But there are certain restrictions of intellectual property generally, such as time limits and other special circumstances (such as fair use, etc.).
Intellectual property protection is a right, not a product. A patent can be sold or transferred, but the patented product is not affected by intellectual property. So some people think that “knowledge monopolies” is a more appropriate word. In fact intellectual property is authorized by the government for some technologies, design or knowledge monopoly.