Intellectual property is born of the human intellect – in
other words, the human mind creates intellectual property. Ideas, thoughts,
concepts that people come up with are their intellectual property and remain so
till such time as they become public knowledge by being shared with others.
Government laws exist in all countries to protect and safeguard the
intellectual property of individuals and organizations since it has commercial
value. Laws prohibit imitation, infringement and dilution. Intellectual
property includes brand names, discoveries, formulas, inventions, designs,
software, artistic/literary/musical works etc.
Intellectual
property laws
Intellectual property remains protected only as long as
it is not disclosed to others. Once others become aware of it, there is a
tendency to “steal” the idea and claim that it is their idea. In order to
bypass intellectual property laws they modify the original idea just a bit so
as not to be identical and then they take credit for the concept/idea. Because
of this practice, many inventors, innovators, creative people etc lose their
ideas to others who had made no contribution at all. In such cases, even though
rules and laws are supposed to protect the original idea, they cannot do so. So
intellectual property no longer remains the originator’s baby.
Just as it is difficult to think of original, unique
concepts and ideas, it is also difficult to execute these ideas. But the ideas
remain an abstract concept till such time as they are not executed. When people
take action with respect to the ideas and create something – tangible or
tangible – from them, the ideas get life, they get an identity. This creation
or execution is what is owned by the creator and it becomes intellectual
property.
Will
just remain as ideas
In order to make their ideas a success, the creators have
to execute them. Otherwise they will just remain as ideas is someone’s back
drawer. Execution requires and is dependent on a large number of factors.
Organizational support, an efficient, motivated and dedicated team, beneficial
personnel policies, favorable government laws all contribute to the success of
idea execution. To take an idea to final execution means a series of
inter-connected tasks that move forward via a disciplined process. These steps
are not that easy to copy. So when an idea is executed via a specific
difficult-to-imitate process, it becomes an intellectual property that belongs
solely to the creator .
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