Introduction
In law, particularly in common law jurisdictions, intellectual property is a form of legal entitlement which allows its holder to control the use of certain intangible ideas and expressions. The term intellectual property reflects the idea that once established, such entitlements are generally treated by courts, especially in common law jurisdictions, as if they were tangible property. The most common forms of intellectual property include patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets. In civil law jurisdictions, intellectual property has often been referred to as intellectual rights, traditionally a somewhat broader concept that has included moral rights and other personal protections that cannot be bought or sold. Use of the term intellectual rights has declined since the early 1980′s, as use of the term intellectual property has increased.
Intellectual property rights may exist either for an indefinite period of time (in the case of trademarks and trade secrets), or they may last for a term of years, after which they typically expire and become part of the public domain. These rights are governed by the law of the sovereign nation in which the intellectual property was created or established. Traditionally, each nation established and enforced its own intellectual property rights; however, beginning with the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property in 1883, numerous treaties have provided for cross-border protections, multinational procedures, and increasing uniformity. Since its establishment in 1967, the Geneva-based World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has become the world’s central organization for promoting internationalism in intellectual property.
There is some controversy with regard to grouping each of the commonly-defined intellectual property rights into a single category, and treating them as if they were tangible property. Critics of intellectual property believe this grouping glosses over fundamental distinctions between various types of exclusive state-granted entitlements, such as copyrights and patents. They also oppose treating works and discoveries similarly to physical property, preferring to maintain a philosophical distinction between natural rights and state-granted entitlements.
Overview
The purposes of exclusive rights laws have varied, but they nevertheless have the appearance of granting the “owner” a monopoly on copying or distribution of a protected form of “property”. This was done originally to grant a boon to a king’s favourite (with some positive advantages to the public, since often these grants were prerequisites before a merchant would undertake production).
The use of the term “intellectual property” is often predicated on considerations such as the “free rider problem” or rationalized by problematizing the fact that owners of computers have the ability to produce and distribute perfect copies of digital works. Proponents of the term tend to address exclusive rights policy by valorizing the incentives afforded to authors and inventors in granting them a right to exact a fee from those who wish to manufacture their inventions or publish their expressive works. The analyses associated with
