Intellectual Property | Industrial Property Rights
 
  The term Intellectual Property is a generic term for copyright, the personal right of an inventor and the industrial property rights.

Just like the personal right of an inventor, the copyright is a right which automatically comes into existence when a work is created by the originator, while the industrial property rights are rights which usually come into existence only after a registration, or for the existence of which special criteria such as the acquisition of secondary meaning are required.

The generally known industrial property rights are patents, utility models, trademarks and the protected design.

Industrial property rights are essential instruments in business management. They serve to secure results obtained by research and development, and they constitute marketing tools for the distinction of own products or services from those of other competitors. A foresighted industrial property right policy provides for the competitive advantage to be able to exclusively use own inventions, designs and trademarks, to prohibit others to use the same and to thereby narrow the free space of the competitors.