Intellectual Property Guide: 4 Types of Intellectual Property

Intellectual property (IP) is intangible property created by human thought—in contrast with tangible property like land, buildings, or products. The most common types of intellectual property include trademarks, copyrights, patents, and trade secrets; less common types of IP include industrial design rights, geographical indications, and trade dress.

Intellectual property, similar to tangible property, is protected by law. In most cases, intellectual property rights (IPRs) grant the creator exclusive right to produce and sell manifestations of their IP.

Intellectual property protection serves two primary purposes: property protection and encouraging innovation. While physical property had significant legal protections to prevent theft, intellectual property was largely unprotected until the early seventeenth century. Modern intellectual property laws serve the purpose of protecting IP and IP holders from theft.

By giving innovators the exclusive right to profit off their ideas, IP laws create an economic incentive to generate new ideas and come up with creative solutions to problems—thereby contributing to the progress of society as a whole.

Here is an overview of intellectual property rights through the ages:

• Antiquity: Traces of intellectual property rights date back to Ancient Greece and Rome—for instance, in 500 BCE, Greek chefs in Sybaris were given one-year monopolies of particular recipes.
• 1600–1700: In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, England passed the Statute of Monopolies (1624) and the Statute of Anne (1710), which protected authors and inventors by offering 14-year monopolies on their work. These statues are considered the prototypes of copyright and patent law, some of the first legal IP protections in the modern world.
• 1880s: The 1880s brought two major world conventions—the Paris Convention and the Berne Convention—which gave rise to the term “intellectual property” and formed the United International Bureaux for the Protection of Intellectual Property. This bureau cemented the idea of IP rights and protections, paving the way for modern-day IP laws.
• 1967: In 1967, the United Nations established the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), which promotes and protects IP rights around the world.

The most common types of intellectual property in the United States include:

1. 1. Copyrights. Copyright protection extends over any original work of authorship, including artistic works, creative works, maps, and computer software. If a person or organization produces a copy of the original work or a derivative work, they can be punished under “copyright infringement.” Copyright law is limited by the “fair use” doctrine, in which certain contexts—like analysis or parody—allow restricted use of copyrighted material. In the US, copyrights are regulated by the United States Copyright Office.
2. 2. Patents. The patent system protects novel inventions for a certain number of years. In the US, there are three types of patents—utility patents (for useful inventions), design patents (for ornamental inventions), and plant patents (for new asexually propagated plants)—regulated by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
3. 3. Trademarks. Trademarks are any IP that identifies an organization, including names, slogans, and logos. If a person or organization produces a copy or derivative work, they can be punished under “trademark infringement.” In the US, trademarks are regulated by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
4. 4. Trade secrets. Trade secrets are IP that an organization keeps secret (through documents like nondisclosure agreements or non-compete agreements) for economic benefit, including recipes or special manufacturing techniques. Trade secrets have an advantage over patents in that the protections don’t expire after a period of time, but they’re not protected from reverse engineering meaning that someone could work to figure out the method or recipe. In the US, trade secrets are regulated by federal and state laws.

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