Intellectual property

Intellectual property is a set of legal rights over intangible creations and identifiers, including inventions, expressive works, designs, and trademarks. Its protections vary by subject, jurisdiction, and duration.

Copyright: A legal right that protects original expression fixed in a tangible form, subject to statutory limits and exceptions. It protects expressive works such as books, music, and films.
Berne Convention: An international treaty requiring member countries to protect eligible literary and artistic works from other members. It coordinates copyright protection across national borders.
Public domain: Works and information not protected by exclusive intellectual-property rights, or whose protection has expired. It identifies material available for use without permission under those rights.
Patent thicket: A dense web of overlapping patents that can make it difficult to develop or commercialize a product. Overlapping rights can raise costs and complicate follow-on innovation.
Statute of Anne: A 1710 English law that established statutory copyright terms for authors and booksellers. It became an influential early model for modern copyright legislation.
Patent: A time-limited government-granted right to exclude others from specified inventions, in exchange for public disclosure. It covers qualifying inventions rather than creative expression.
Patent examination: An administrative review of a patent application’s compliance with legal requirements such as novelty and inventive step. It determines whether an invention qualifies for a patent grant.
Open-source software: Software distributed under licenses that grant users rights to use, inspect, modify, and share its source code. It uses intellectual-property rights to authorize broad reuse rather than exclude it.
Compulsory licensing: A legal authorization to use protected intellectual property without the owner’s consent, subject to specified conditions. It can balance exclusive rights against public needs.
Venetian Patent Statute: A 1474 Venetian law establishing a system for granting limited privileges to inventors. It is an early statutory foundation for patent protection.

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