What is the importance of intellectual property rights?

Answer 1

Intellectual property protection is critical to fostering innovation. Without protection of ideas, businesses would not reap the full benefits of their inventions and would focus less on research and development. Similarly, artists would not be fully compensated for their creations and cultural vitality would suffer as a result.

Answer 2

Intellectual property rights are needed to keep people working to produce intellectual property. An author needs to be paid for the time he spent writing an article or book. If anyone could copy it and publish it, not very many people could afford to be authors. Inventors need to be paid for the time spent working on their inventions. What company would hire a scientist if it could not sell the products he invented and make a profit. A company borrows money. It hires scientists. The scientists make inventions. The company sells inventions. The company repays the money with interest. The company also makes a profit. The scientist had a job.

Answer 3

Formal registration makes it easier for the rightsholder to prove their rights, and makes it easier for potential users to identify and locate the rightsholder in order to ask for permission.

In the US, registration is required to bring a suit of infringement (without registration, the work is still protected, but infringement issues are handled outside the court system).

Answer 4

Creators benefit from IP laws because they have a chance to ascribe value to and potentially make a living from their imagination and hard work.

Society benefits from IP laws because they encourage creators not necessarily to create their works, but to share them with others.

Answer 5

Most* intellectual property rights exist to reward creativity with a limited monopoly, with the expectation that this will encourage future creative work.

*Trademark is a means of reducing fraud in the marketplace.

Answer 6

See below for a link to a document prepared by a firm of patent agents.

Answer 7

You obtain intellectual property rights in order to ascribe real value to your creative output.

Answer 8

Because it is the way creative artists make their money.