IP protection is granted to individuals, groups, or organizations who create literary or artistic works, inventions, or name forms. There are four main types of IP protections: trademarks, patents, trade secrets, and copyrights. Each of these four types is briefly described below:
1. Patents: Used to protect inventions, patents grant a patent holder the exclusive right to sell, make, or use an invention. Most patents are utility patents, which cover any process of manufacture or matter composition, but there are also design and plant patents available for original designs and new varieties of asexually produced plants.
2. Trademark: Words, designs, symbols or slogans that distinguish one company or brand from another may be protected under trademark law. A trademark does not protect a single product of process, like a patent does. Rather, it involves a set of services or products that are distinguishable due to the applied mark..
3. Trade secrets: Any business information that grants one company an economic advantage over competitors may under prescribed circumstances be regarded as a trade secret. This information may includes such things as customer lists, soda formulas, and computer algorithms. Trade secrets are only protected if the business actively controls the use and disclosure of the information.
4. Copyright: To protect works of original authorship, like drawings or movies, creators have copyright protection. This grants a creator the right to, among other things, display, modify, distribute, and copy the work as the creator sees fit. To qualify for copyright protection, the material must be tangible in nature; a mere idea on its own does not qualify.
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