The list of distinct types of legal monopolies over creations of idea, both artistic and commercial, and the corresponding fields of law is called Intellectual property (IP). Under intellectual property law, proprietors are granted certain sole rights to a sort of intangible assets, such as musical, literary, and artistic works; ideas, discoveries, and inventions; and words, phrases, symbols, and designs. Trade secrets, copyrights, patents, and trademarks are four main types of intellectual property.

Copyrights safeguard original creations, either published or unpublished. They offer legal protection for original creative works like novels, movies, music, and so on. They allow the owners to exclusively use many forms of their creation in different mediums with sole legal authority over replication, adaptation, sale etc for a prescribed period of time. In a majority of countries, a copyright is valid even after the author’s demise for 50 years and any unauthorized usage is actionable.

Patents are registered rights that safeguard the original work of the inventors by preventing unscrupulous individuals from creating or marketing their invention. Typically they are applicable to scientific theories, technological inventions and even biological discoveries. In most nations, patent protection is available for a limited span of 20 years and the owner loses his sole ownership over the invention after the expiry of this time span.

Trade secrets are proprietary ideas and information that can be used by the company to stand out in the industry. A trade secret could be anything ranging from a customer database with the contact information of most treasured clients to a unique recipe or even a confidential report. More often than not, trade secrets are issues pertaining to in house management of the company, which do not involve any kind of government intervention. Two most commonly used ways of protecting a trade secret are keeping it in a bank locker or keeping it confined to a restricted number of officials, so that it is not within reach of several people and therefore stays secure.

Trademarks include words, symbols or graphics that are used in the context of a specific brand or commodity in order to separate it from products of rivals. Trademarks create a unique brand identity for a firm and trigger instant recall in the minds of customers. Usually trademarks hold good for 10 years after which a renewal is often necessary.

Discover more about Trademark Registration Singapore and discover how does an Intellectual Property protection increase the net worth of your business very fast.