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What are the Different Types of Intellectual Property Infringement?

By Charity Delich
Updated: May 16, 2024
Views: 35,223
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Many countries recognize a person’s right to exclusively use, make, or sell certain types of intellectual property, such as software products, brand name logos, designs, or recipes. These rights are commonly given in the form of patents, trademarks, copyrights, or trade secret protection. Intellectual property infringement occurs when a person or entity violates another person’s exclusive rights to intellectual property. The most common types of intellectual property infringement are patent, copyright, trademark, and trade secret infringement.

In general, when a person receives a patent for intellectual property, he or she has invented something. The patent gives the inventor the right to exclude other people from making, using, selling, or importing the product. Patent infringement occurs when a person, other than the patent holder, makes, uses, sells, or imports the product without permission from the patent holder. For instance, suppose that Jane Smith has received a patent for inventing a certain kind of hearing aid. If John Doe starts to manufacture the same hearing aid, without Jane’s permission, he would be committing intellectual property theft.

Copyrights are commonly given to authors of original works, regardless of whether those works are published. Items commonly copyrighted include television shows, music, and movies as well as books, magazines, and websites. In a copyright intellectual property infringement case, the copyright owner may sue another party for violating the owner’s exclusive rights to the copyrighted work. For example, if a person illegally downloads songs from a website, she is guilty of copyright infringement.

Trademarks are symbols, words, logos, or names that are intended to differentiate one manufacturer or seller’s products from products that are made or sold by another person or entity. If symbols, words, logos, or names are given trademark protection, they cannot be used by other people without the owner’s permission. Trademark intellectual property infringement occurs when a person or entity uses a trademarked item without authorization. For instance, suppose that Company A has trademarked a logo that identifies Company A’s brand of sportswear. If Company B starts to put the same logo on its own brand of sportswear, Company B would be committing intellectual property theft.

Typically, trade secret items are confidential or proprietary information that an entity or person has exclusive rights to. A company’s pricing methodologies, computer software code, and the recipe for a specific soft drink are all examples of trade secrets. Trade secret intellectual property infringement cases frequently arise when trade secrets have been stolen. For instance, suppose that Company A is developing a new product. If Company B steals the product specifications in order to develop a competing product, Company B would have committed trade secret theft.

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Discussion Comments
By Fa5t3r — On Dec 27, 2013

@croydon - The problem with that is that we aren't really aware of how much parody exists in modern culture. I mean, if you look at some really good modern books and shows, they are basically all parody of other books and shows. But they would never be made if they had to ask permission for every joke.

Honestly, if I had copyright over something I would sell it for a while, maybe twenty years, and then put it in the public domain. I think that art and stories should belong to the community at large and should grow and change with them, rather than remaining static.

By croydon — On Dec 27, 2013

@MrsPramm - To me, the difference should be financial. If someone really wants to say something worth saying that happens to parody an original book, then why can't they say it for free? Once they start making money from it directly, then I think it should count as intellectual property copyright infringement.

By MrsPramm — On Dec 26, 2013

One of the places where this gets really muddy is when people make a parody of an original work. It is legal to do this, which really has to remain true because it's a civil right to be able to make fun of anything. That might sound like it's silly, but imagine if Rowling could sue you for publishing a joke that mentions Harry Potter. More importantly, we have to protect the right to criticize through parody, since there are things that can be said in that medium that don't work in serious analysis or discourse.

Anyway, the trouble is that every work is unique and it can be difficult to define whether something is a parody or not. This kind of potential infringement of intellectual property can't be taken lightly either, because if it was anyone could write anything based on an original and claim that it was meant to be a parody.

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