
Openness ◾ 63
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS
In the broadest sense, intellectual property rights (IPR) is the name given to a group of legal
rights that confer exclusive control over the products of human creativity or ingenuity, for
a fixed amount of time (the term), to their creators. Once the term of the right has expired,
the creative work passes into the public domain where it can be copied, adapted and dis-
tributed. Intellectual property rights subsist in a range of creative/inventive endeavours, are
manifested in different forms (from copyright through to patents) and encompass areas of
law as diverse as trademarks and plant breeders’ ...