What is intellectual property?

In the simplest terms, Intellectual Property is the legal right that is associated with intellectual creations like inventions, software code, logos and other art works. It is the umbrella terms that includes both registered rights and all other kinds of intangible assets.

Registered rights

Registered rights are what most of us recognise as intellectual property. A registered right is a work, for example a logo, a word mark, a design or an invention, that has been registered with an official body and is therefore, protected against unsanctioned use by unauthorised third parties.

Rights that require registration for protection everywhere include patents, trade marks and design rights. Other rights that only require registration in certain territories include geographical indicators, copyrights and utility models.

Intellectual assets

There are lots of intangible assets that can't be formally registered but can often be as valuable as registered rights. They can include things like trade secrets, customer reviews, databases, websites and social media accounts, many of which a lot of organisations often don't consider to carry any value at all. So, even if you don't have any registered rights, the chances are you have lots of intellectual assets that you need to think about.

There are several different ways to protect your intellectual property, depending on what you have. A good starting point may be to audit your IP to ascertain exactly what intangible assets you have, and Inngot could help you with that. From there, there are some very straightforward actions you can take to protect your IP, such as maintaining logs that document IP development or signing and dating designs, notebooks and drafts. It may also be possible to register your IP with various official bodies using patent, trademark and design rights registrations, amongst others.

The simplest thing to do is to seek professional or legal advice. Or speak to our team and see what we could do to help.