According to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), intellectual property refers to creations of the mind. The organization administers the WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performance and Phonogram Treaty (often know together as the “Internet Treaties”), and set up international norms aimed at preventing unauthorized access to and use of creative works on the Internet or other digital networks.
WIPO IP divided into two categories: industrial property, which includes patents for inventions, trademarks, industrial designs and geographical indications. And copyright, which includes literacy works such as novels, poems, plays, reference works, newspapers, and computer programs; databases; films, musical compositions, and choreography; artistic work such as paintings, drawings, photographs, and sculpture; architecture; and advertisements, maps, and technical drawings.
To protect an innovation at the international level, the creators should assess which option wants, depending on different criteria: geographic location where protection required, the language where are performing the processing and which cost is capable of assuming, or terms on which wants to obtain the patent. On the other hand, copyright itself does not depend on official procedures. The original creators of works hold the exclusive right to use or authorize others to use the work on agreed terms.
According to international laws, it is illegal to remove, change or get around Digital Rights Management of a work. Copyright infringement take place when a copyrighted work is used (reproduced, translated, adapted, exhibited or performed in public, distributed, broadcast, or communicated to the public) without the permission of the right holders or under a limitation to copyright. This is usually determined by a court, which compares the original work and the work accused of infringement.
Finally it is important to highlight that technological innovation is one of the most valuable ways to produce innovations. The ability of technology and knowledge, well managed, produce differentiation and competitive advantages in the medium and long term, through the creation of added value, difficult to imitate. There is a difference between innovate and invent. Inventing is to create something new that not exist before, while innovation is the practical application of inventions.
Sources of information:
World Intellectual Property Organization
(PDF) What is copyright?. WIPO Publication Nº L450CR/E.
(PDF) The arts and copyright. World Intellectual Property Organization, 2007.
Post written by Carmen Rafecas.