Certain creations of the human mind that have commercial value and are given the legal aspects of a property
right. Intellectual property is an all-encompassing term now widely used to designate as a group all of the
following fields of law: patent, trademark, unfair competition, copyright, trade secret, moral rights, and the
right of publicity.
Ownership of ideas, including literary and artistic works (protected by copyright), inventions (protected by
patents), signs for distinguishing goods of an enterprise (protected by trademarks) and other elements of
industrial property.
A word, slogan, design, picture, or any other symbol used to identify and distinguish goods.
Any identifying symbol, including a word, design, or shape of a product or container, that qualifies for legal
status as a trademark, service mark, collective mark, certification mark, trade name, or trade dress.
Trademarks identify one seller's goods and distinguish them from goods sold by others. They signify that all
goods bearing the mark come from or are controlled by a single source and are of an equal level of quality.
A trademark is infringed by another if the second use causes confusion of source, affiliation, connection, or
sponsorship.
An exclusive right granted or conferred by the government on the creator of a work to exclude others from
reproducing it, adapting it, distributing it to the public, performing it in public, or displaying it in public.
Copyright does not protect an abstract idea; it protects only the concrete form of expression in a work. To be
valid, a copyrighted work must have originality and possess a modicum of creativity. Copyright lasts (as a
general rule) for the life of the creator plus 50 years (70 years in the US and EU). It prevents unauthorised
reproduction, public performance, recording, broadcasting, translation, or adaptation, and allows the collection
of royalties for authorised use.
An exclusive right awarded to an inventor to prevent others from making, selling, distributing, importing or
using their invention, without licence or authorisation, for a fixed period of time.
In return, society requires that the patentee discloses the invention in the public. There are usually three
requirements for patentability: novelty (new characteristics which are not prior art), inventive step or non
obviousness (knowledge not obvious to one skilled in the field), and industrial applicability or utility (US).
Unauthorized representation of a registered trademark, with a view to deceiving the purchaser into believing
that he/she is buying the original goods. For the purpose of this Report, the term counterfeiting is used in its
broadest sense and encompasses the manufacture and/or distribution and/or sale of copies of goods, which
have been made without the authority of the owner of the intellectual property, with a view to deceiving the
purchaser into believing that he/she is buying the original goods. Counterfeiting can apply to both branded and
generic products, and includes:
a) an intentional reproduction of a genuine trademark, that is similar to the original one, on goods similar to
the original ones or made with non – genuine material (for example: wrong ingredients, fake packaging… )
b) an intentional and unauthorized sale of a registered trademark (example: genuine products sold in the black
market)
Unauthorized copying of materials protected by copyright for commercial purposes and unauthorized
commercial dealing in copied materials.
