What does knowledge of intellectual property mean?

Intellectual property refers to the legal rights generated by the creative talents of human brain. Intellectual property rights play an important role in promoting national economic prosperity, and can encourage creative individuals to share their wisdom with society. Just as the real right of movable property and immovable property protects the individual's ownership of tangible property (such as land and cars); Intellectual property rights protect individuals' ownership of intangible property, such as inventions, music scores of Broadway musicals, product names and signs. If these rights are not mandatory by law, it will be difficult for society to prosper and progress. In this article, you will learn what intellectual property is and the differences between its various specific forms. Most people associate intellectual property with patents, trademarks and copyrights. These three rights are the core content of intellectual property rights, which reward and protect the creative work of inventors, authors, owners and sellers of various commodities and services in the market. Although the basic legal principles on which these rights are based are different, there are some common principles among them. Granting patent, trademark or copyright protection requires striking a delicate balance between the rights and interests of inventors or authors and the rights and interests of society as a whole. This balance is very similar to that in the planning method. The balanced measure in the planning law is to obtain greater social benefits by restricting the use of land by landowners, and then protect the ownership and exclusive right of landowners. Examples of such balancing measures include public easements and drainage rights. For example, someone has developed a drug that can save lives and granted a patent right to such a major invention, which is also a similar balancing measure. But is it fair to allow the society to use patented drugs for free? In order to get more benefits from drugs, society is not allowed to use drugs invented by itself. Is this fair to society? The function of intellectual property law is to reconcile these seemingly contradictory conflicts of interest. In addition, intellectual property rights also help to cultivate competitive markets. It protects inventors' interests in innovation for a period of time, thus encouraging them to disclose their inventions, thus achieving the purpose of promoting market competitiveness. Open innovation technology can make others create and improve on the basis of existing inventions, thus promoting the sustainable development of technical level. Without the benefits of intellectual property protection, it would be difficult for the market to operate as effectively as it does now. Imagine what the world would be like if every competitor could not improve the processing on the basis of others' work, but had to start from scratch! Finally, intellectual property rights are regional, and their granting conditions and enforcement are governed by the laws of each jurisdiction. For example, U.S. patents can only be granted and enforced according to U.S. laws. Only according to Canadian laws can trademarks be registered and enforced in Canada; Only according to the laws of China can copyright be registered and enforced in China. Although people want to be unified, there are still differences in how to protect intellectual property rights in different countries. Among these differences, the differences on how to obtain intellectual property rights account for the majority, while the differences on substantive rights granted by various countries account for the minority. The words "patent" and "trademark" are often used interchangeably. We often hear that patents are used to protect logos, trademarks are used to protect inventions, and vice versa. Although the object of patent and trademark protection may be the same product, the meaning of these two words and the form of intellectual property they represent are quite different. In fact, these two words are rarely used interchangeably, because the basic rights they protect are very different in nature. What is a patent? Generally speaking, patents are used to protect intellectual property rights related to product design or process design. For example, American patents are issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office and can only be effectively enforced in the United States, but are invalid outside the United States. A patent gives the patentee an "exclusive right" to prohibit others from manufacturing, using, selling or promising to sell the product or the manufacturing process of the product described in the patent. It is worth noting that for the patent owner, the patent does not give the owner the right to use his patented invention for profit. The patent owner only has the exclusive right to prevent others from doing so. In other words, just getting a patent for a product doesn't mean that you can actually use it to make a profit. Your previous patent owner may exercise the "exclusive right" granted by his patent to prevent you from doing so. This is an important difference. Let's explain it in detail with an example. Suppose your patented invention is a chair with four legs, a base, a backrest and a pair of bent legs-this is a rocking chair. Under patent protection, you have the exclusive right to prevent others from manufacturing, using, selling or promising to sell this patented rocking chair. We assume that if the bent leg on the rocking chair you designed is unique and protected by a previous patent, then the patent owner of the bent leg has the exclusive right to prevent others (including you) from using the bent leg. Using patented bent legs in your rocking chair will constitute patent infringement. Therefore, although you have obtained the patent of rocking chair, you still can't actually manufacture, use, sell or promise to sell this rocking chair without the permission of the patent owner of bent foot. The patent owner of the bent foot doesn't have to give you authorization, as long as he wants, he can stop your rocking chair from entering the market at any time. Of course, there are more sensible ways. The patent owner of the bent foot can provide you with authorization by charging a certain license fee, so as to share your success. The validity period of a patent is 20 years, counting from the date of patent application. What is a trademark? In the United States, trademark registration, like patents, is also issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Patents prevent others from copying products without permission by giving the patentee exclusive rights (for prohibiting others from manufacturing, using, selling or promising to sell patented products), while trademarks are used to identify or highlight products among consumers of products. Therefore, trademarks have nothing to do with prohibiting product copying. That's what patents do. The United States Patent and Trademark Office defines a trademark as words, names, symbols, graphs and combinations of the above elements that producers and operators use or intend to use to distinguish their own goods from others' goods and indicate the source of goods. In short, a trademark is the name of a brand. Closely related to trademarks are service trademarks, collective trademarks and certification trademarks. Just as trademarks distinguish product sources, service trademarks are used to distinguish service sources. A collective trademark refers to a trademark or service trademark used by a group or organization. A certification trademark is a symbol used by others other than the trademark owner to prove the quality, accuracy or other quality of the user's goods or services. What is copyright? Expression of the idea of copyright protection. Unlike patents, patents protect the creativity itself, while copyrights only protect the expression of creativity. In the example discussed earlier, the patent protects the creativity of the four-legged chair, while the creativity can be protected by copyright through the expression of pictures, photos and language. A work must be original by the author to qualify for copyright protection. To determine whether a work is original by the author, the following two conditions must be met: the work must be independently completed by the author, and it must be innovative. If the work does not meet the above two conditions, it cannot be regarded as an original work and is not qualified for copyright protection. However, even if the work contains some non-original elements, it can still be protected by copyright. For example, if the author rearranges the non-original elements in an original way, the compilation will still be regarded as original and thus entitled to copyright protection. According to the time of creation, the copyright protection period starts from the date of publication of the work and ends 70 years after the death of the author. See the link on the next page for more information.