Intellectual property (IP) is a list of various types of legal monopolies over creations of the idea, both artistic and commercial, and the related fields of law. Under intellectual property law, proprietors have sole rights to some intangibles such as musical, literary, and artistic works; ideas, breakthroughs, and inventions; and words. phrases, symbols, and designs. There are four main kinds of intellectual property – trade secrets, patents, copyrights, and trademarks.

Copyrights give lawful rights to published and unpublished original creations. They safeguard the ownership of works of art like musical scores, poetry, films, novels etc. They permit the owners to exclusively use many forms of their idea in different mediums with exclusive legal rights of reproduction, adaptation, sale etc for a certain period of time. The creator has a claim over his creation for more than 50 years, which is valid even after his death and any infringement of the work within this period is treated as an offence.

Patents on the other hand are lawful and official rights that allow an inventor to prevent others from manufacturing or marketing his or her invention. They are usually applicable to cases such as important biological discoveries, new theories in science and technical inventions. The legal cover provided by a patent in most nations is for a period of 20 years, after which the invention ceases to be the exclusive property of the inventor.

Trade secrets are those classified pieces of information that help a company to gain an edge over its competitors in the market. A trade secret could be anything ranging from a client database with the names and addresses of most valuable customers to a unique recipe or even a confidential report. Typically, trade secrets are a confidential matter and are zealously guarded by the firm without any involvement of a government agency. The common steps taken by a company to safeguard trade secrets include confining the information to a chosen handful of executives, or even keeping it secured in some bank vault.

Trademarks, on the other hand, are one or more words, designs or logos that are associated with the firm on the whole or its products and services, which act as identifiers of its brand. Trademarks create a unique brand identity for a company and generate instant recall in the minds of consumers. Usually, a registered trademark can be renewed after a span of a decade.

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