What Is Intellectual Property?

By Maryl Joop


There was a conflict between NBC and Conan O'Brien in 2010 that ended in the host of the Tonight Show leaving, being replaced with former host Jay Leno. Though NBC and Leno were both highly criticized for essentially forcing O'Brien to leave the network it did happen, and had negative consequences for O'Brien's future.

This consequence was that any idea or product that had been written by him or his writers for his show was under patent as a property of NBC, not Conan O'Brien. Therefore, once he left the network, he would be under contract and law to never use the same jokes again, despite the fact that he wrote them.

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Anything that is capable of industrial application. This is anything that falls under the technological inventions, pharmaceutical changes, or other new ideas that can be applied in different industries.

IP includes anything that are inventions, discoveries, processes, unique materials, copyrightable works, original data, creative works (such as Conan's jokes), models, machines, devices, apparatus, instrumentation, circuits, computer programs and visualizations, biological materials, chemicals, other compositions of matter, plans, and records of research.

It usually takes around 18 months to get a patent. While your application is in there it is secret but by the end of the 18 months it is published for the world to see what you were trying to patent. This happens whether you get the patent or not.

Whether you are an inventor, singer/songwriter, or just coming up with original content as a writer, intellectual property law is something that you need to understand in order to protect your ideas and to make them work for you in the end. The reason that intellectual property laws were created was to protect individuals from big industries and government and give them ownership over their own ideas and inventions.

The law has become more and more complicated as mediums for sharing ideas have changed. For instance the internet has opened the doors for many to copy and infringe on other people's ideas. Not only is it important to protect your property as a contributor of new ideas to society, but it is also important to fight back when necessary.

Keep yourself aware of all the things you may create that can be taken away from you and make the necessary precautions so you don't end up losing them like Conan O'Brien did.




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