The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Consumption and Consumer Studies

Intellectual Property

OVE GRANSTRAND

Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden

MARCUS HOLGERSSON

University of Gothenburg, Sweden

DOI: 10.1002/9781118989463.wbeccs151

A property can be defined as a resource with some form of assigned ownership, and an intellectual property is then a property of intellectual or intangible character. An intellectual property right (IPR) is a legally codified right created and used to assign ownership to intellectual resources such as knowledge, technologies, brand names, and other types of intellectual creations.

IPRs constitute a family of temporary, restricted, and transferable or licensable rights to exclude others from commercializing someone's intellectual or intangible creations or inventions under certain conditions. The main types of IPR are patent rights to technical inventions, copyrights to creations in various arts (including software as a kind of border case), design rights to physical artistic and handicraft forms or designs, trademark rights to signs, designs, identity marks, or expressions that identify a certain entity, product, or service, and trade secret rights to trade secrets. Other types are, for example, database rights and breeding rights.

An intellectual creation typically has at least to be new and distinctive to qualify for IPR protection. Different legal frameworks apply to different IPRs, and these to some extent vary over time and across countries, for example in terms of legal strength and enforceability against infringers ...