WHAT IS INTELLECTUAL
PROPERTY?
LET’S LEARN THE BASICS
Stephen Replin The Replin Law Group, LTD.
The term “intellectual property,” often abbreviated IP, refers to creations of the mind, such as inventions, literary and artistic works, designs, music and lyrics, symbols, names, and images used in commerce.
And who doesn’t run around each day having creative thoughts about what they see or hear?
Your self-talk might include questions such as these:
a) Wouldn’t this building look better if it had lighter brick?
b) Wouldn’t that car be much prettier if it was purple instead of fluorescent yellow?
c) Why aren’t police cars painted in luminescent paint so they could be seen more easily at night?
d) What a bad name for a restaurant! They should have named it __________!
e) Wouldn’t it be cool if grocery buggies had small engines in each of them to make it easier to get your food to your car?
f) Or any of literally millions of topics.
The reason that intellectual property has become so important to our lives over the previous decades is that this is one class of property that is driving our economy forward at a high rate of speed.
Great fortunes were made by investing in real estate in the 20th century. Maybe you have heard of J. Paul Getty. During the 1929 stock market crash, and thereafter, he took advantage of the fact that everyone was short of cash. During that time, he acquired undervalued oil stocks and real estate building one of the great fortunes of our times.
But the more contemporary developers of great fortunes have been those who have created intellectual property, and sold, leased, licensed, or used it to build empires. Now, the development and monetization of intellectual property accounts for the majority of the gross domestic product of Israel, Switzerland, and the United States. These economies are now based on the development of unique and universally useful intellectual property in the form of trade secrets, trademarks, copyrights, and patents.
Maybe this discussion will be more meaningful yet, if you realize that something as simple as the cell phone is a triumph of intellectual property. The little expensive piece of equipment that you cannot live without is filled with more intellectual property than prior space launches had in their rockets. Chips, software, displays, and so on have created literally billions (and likely trillions) of dollars since the introduction of mobile phones.
I’m hopeful that you find this topic to be interesting. Of course, I am delighted to work with various IP issues with entrepreneurs who think that they may have some, but don’t know for sure what it is, and even less what to do with it to generate revenues.
I’m thrilled to be presenting this to you. If you would like to have a copy of my book entitled “The basics of the 4 elements of Intellectual Property,” please enter your name, email address, and I’ll make sure that you get a PDF in your email.
Best regards, Steve
The Replin Law Group, LTD.
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