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Copyrights And Intellectual Property

In the general society, people have a right to own physical property. On the other hand Intellectual property gives people a chance to have ownership of their creativity and innovations. This means that people’s creativity work gets to be treated similar to physical property and assets. This will boost the culture of innovations as inventors acknowledge that they will be rewarded for their creativity. Intellectual property is divided into four major ways. The most known of the four is copyright as it is what people hear about most of the time. It is however good to note that IP is not automatic. Once you have a new work of creativity, you need to apply for protection for your work or invention. If there is no other such work that is registered then you will be required to pay some fee that allows your work to be protected. You must prove some originality and your work must resemble any other registered or published work.

Terms explained

  • Copyright

    • This applies to any recorded creation. It applies to creations like music, drama, sound recordings, literature, artistic and films. The author will then get special rights that are related to the work. You can therefore not use the work without authorization. In case you the rights are violated, then the author has a right to take legal action the offender. Copyright can be registered online and once one is registered they can prove ownership and rights for their work in any state in the world. However, you will note that this is the most violated IP right.

  • Trademarks

    • These are registered at the national level. Each country or government has a body that is appointed by the government of the time. Trademarks include protection for slogan, names, design, symbol, word and other unique devices that are used to identify organizations and/or products.

  • Patents

    • Patents just like trademarks can only be registered at the national level. There is an appointed body in every nation that does the registration. Patents are given for inventions and industrial processes. They are exclusive rights given against unauthorized use and implementation.

  • Design rights

    • For any design, one has the right and option to choose. They can either be protected as copyrights or design rights. Their registration is similar to that of patents.

It is important to note that all these rights are given to works that have not been registered, published or used by other people before. They can also not be given to works that have conflicts of ownership.

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