Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights - Dissertation Example

Chapter three will provide a detailed description of the methodology used to conduct the research relevant to the construction of this thesis as well as the research plan and what will be accomplished through this examination.  Thorough data analysis will be conducted within the fourth chapter and the fifth chapter will evaluate the information in its entirety and provide a conclusion to the thesis, followed by appendices and figures providing supportive details in the form of visual aids. 

What is intellectual property?

The American Heritage Dictionary classifies the term ‘intellectual property as “A product of the intellect that has commercial value, including copyrighted property such as literary or artistic works, and ideational property, such as patents, appellations of origin, business methods, and industrial processes” (2009). 

For the purpose of this dissertation, intellectual property (IP) will follow this delineation.  The notion of IP rights standards became a necessity as human ingenuity grew and people saw the need to protect their ideas and inventions from infringement.  The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) defines intellectual property as:

“Creations of the mind: inventions, literary and artistic works, and symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce” (WIPO, n.d.).  

The concept is broken down further into the categories of industrial property and copyrights (WIPO, n.d.). IP classified under the category of Industrial property includes inventions, patents, industrial designs, and trademarks and copyrights include literature, like novels, poems, plays, films, and musical works, as well as artistic creations like music, paintings, drawings, architecture, sculptures, and photographs (WIPO, n.d.). 

Copyrights also relate to the rights of audio and visual recordings, with the general difference between copyrights and patents being that ideas and thoughts are copyrightable and processes and products are patentable (WIPO, n.d).  Patents, trademarks, and copyrights differ mainly in their application in that trademarks generally are used as a product identifier like the cat BabyPhat uses, while a patent grants exclusive rights to the manufacturing and distribution of an invention or process that provides an innovative way of doing something or a new technical solution to a problem for a specific length of time (WIPO, n.d.).  Once this period of time has expired, the product may be copied and others are allowed to profit from the invention (WIPO, n.d.).  Copyrights include computer software and other technological creations, like drawings graphics, and other technologies (WIPO, n.d.).