Before understanding about Intellectual property rights, you should first know the basics of intellectual property (IP). Intellectual property is defined as the creation of your mind i.e. ideas, innovations, inventions, literary and even artistic works, designs, names etc. in the field of commerce. IP can be seen everywhere around you. The trademarks, trade secrets, films, music and even the shape of a product, everything falls in the category of intellectual rights.
What Is Intellectual Property Rights?
The intellectual property rights are for the protection of your work, reserving rights limited to you only. Having these rights, you can easily financially benefit yourself and earn recognition based on your work. Once you have these rights, no one else can ever be entitled to your work.
Understanding the Importance of Intellectual Property Rights Protection
Intellectual Property rights are the most valuable asset to your company. No matter what, you should know how to protect it. These rights motivate and reward your creation and innovation. They offer owner the chance to take full advantage of their creativity in different ways.
- These rights motivates you to indulge in creative activities benefiting society
- They make the access to various researches and ideas easier
- These rights also offer a particular period of protection
- IP rights can also be sold for financial benefit and may serve as a valuable asset
- These rights make it easier for the companies and businesses to compete in the market due to their reputation associated with their brand and ideas other than the price.
- With IP protection, the owner has the authority to allow or decline the use of those rights by anyone else
- If you got your IP rights registered, you have the right to invest in or sell it during a particular time period.
IP rights are not similar to physical assets. These can be used without having to worry about its quality degradation. Moreover, the best advantage it offers is that there are no chances of your products and ideas being replicated and used by competitors, claiming it as their own.
In short, it is the difference between failure and success of your business.
Types of Intellectual Property Rights Protection in Australia
Getting intellectual property rights for your work is not the final step. You need to protect it for prevention against infringement. In Australia, there are different types of IP protection and every type has its own legislation. The types are:
Patents: This protection is applicable to any revamped or new idea, products and processes.
Trademarks: This is applicable to pictures, shapes, packaging, logos, letters and sounds. Trademark’s purpose is to distinguish one item or service from the other.
Designs: Applicable to appearance and shape of any manufactured good or product.
Circuit Layout Rights: Applicable to all electronic circuits having the three-dimensional configuration.
Copyrights: Applicable to all categories of media such as musical, dramatic, multimedia, films, in short your original masterpiece.
Plant Breeder’s Rights: applicable to all new varieties of plant.
Confidentiality/ Trade Secrets: applicable to all proprietary information of a company (includes recipes, how to etc.)
For your business, first find out which intellectual property rights apply to your business and then protect it for safe and secure success.