Intellectual Property in Canada
Intellectual Property: Forms of Intellectual Property
Introduction to Intellectual Property
The principal types of intellectual property are patents, copyrights, and trademarks. Patent law protects inventions that demonstrate technological progress. Copyright law protects a variety of literary and artistic works, including paintings, sculpture, prose, poetry, plays, musical compositions, dances, photographs, motion pictures, radio and television programs, sound recordings, and computer software programs. Trademark law protects words, slogans, and symbols that serve to identify different brands of goods and services in the marketplace.
Intellectual property also includes certain related fields of law, such as trade secrets and the right of publicity. Trade secret law protects confidential information that belongs to a business and gives that business a competitive advantage. For example, the formula for making the soft drink Coca-Cola is a trade secret protected by intellectual property laws. Right of publicity law protects the right to use one’s own name or likeness for commercial purposes. For example, a famous athlete may profit by using his or her name to endorse a given product. Using a person’s name to endorse a product without their permission is a violation of right of publicity law.
Intellectual property differs from other forms of property because it is intangible-that is, it is a product of the human imagination. Because intellectual property is intangible, many people may use it simultaneously without conflict. For example, only one person can drive a car at a time, but if an author publishes a book, many people can read the work at the same time. Intellectual property is also much easier to copy than it is to create. It may take many months of work to write a novel or computer program, but with a photocopy machine or a computer others could copy the work in a matter of seconds. Without intellectual property laws, it would be easy to duplicate original works and sell them for very low prices, leaving the original creators without any chance to secure economic rewards for their efforts. The legal system avoids this problem by making it against the law to reproduce various forms of intellectual property without the permission of the creator.
Most intellectual property rights expire after a specified period. This permits the rest of society to benefit from the work after the creator has had an opportunity to earn a fair reward. For example, after the inventor of a patented telecommunications device has profited from the work for a specified period, anyone may manufacture that same device without paying the inventor royalties, thereby encouraging competition that allows others to benefit from the invention as well. The one exception to limited periods of intellectual property rights is in the field of trademark law. Trademark rights never expire, so long as a merchant continues to use the trademark to identify a given product.” (1)
Definition of Intellectual Property
Intellectual Property meaning or descrpition: legal rights that result from intellectual activity in the industrial, scientific, literary, and artistic fields (Source of this concept of Intellectual Property: emp.ca/books/468-7)
Intellectual Property in University Research
Concept of Intellectual Property in relation to legal research and research in general: Any form of knowledge or expression created with one’s intellect. Intellectual property is divided into two categories: (1) industrial property, which includes inventions (patents), trademarks, and industrial designs; and (2) copyright which includes literary (e.g., novels, poems, plays) and artistic works (e.g., drawings, paintings, photographs, sculptures).
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See Also
Intellectual Property and Antitrust entries in this Canada legal encyclopedia address the most important issues and gives “first step” assessment from local contributors, covering such areas as: intellectual property law and competition law, IP enforcement proceedings, merger analysis, challenges and behavioral and structural remedies involving IP rights, jurisdiction of competition and IP agencies, cartels, price maintenance, abuse of dominance and remedies in Canada.
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Notes and References
Information about Intellectual Property in the Encarta Online Encyclopedia
Guide to Intellectual Property