In: Operations Management
what is Intellectual property ?
Intellectual property are those things which human beings create which are intangible in nature. For tangible things like car, house, phones, clothes the ownership of assets can be defined clearly by means of possession. However for intangible things like an idea, a story, a new process, it is difficult to assign an ownership in case of lack of a clear framework. This is where intellectual property comes into play. Intellectual property or IP as it is generally known, helps to clearly define who is the owner of an intangible things, why is he or she an owner of the intangible asset, how long will the owner remain an owner of the asset and what rights does he or she have an an owner. Intellectual property is of different types like trademarks, copyrights, patents, trade secrets etc. Intellectual property helps define a mechanism so that there is enough incentive to create the intellectual goods for the creators while at the same time it allows usage of those intellectual goods by the general public without causing any loss to the original owner.