3 ms·

Intellectual property is permission to prevent other people from doing something. In the case of trademarks, you are allowed to prevent people from using a par

Intellectual property is permission to prevent other people from doing something. In the case of trademarks, you are allowed to prevent people from using a particular name (in order to keep that name unique and meaningful). In the case of patents, you are allowed to prevent people from "using your idea" (even if it's also their idea). Supposedly this encourages people to develop ideas to the point where they're actually useful (and patentable), but looking at history they don't actually help. In the case of copyright, you are allowed to prevent people from duplicating or building on your ideas (but in theory not from doing the same thing independently). Similar to patents, this doesn't appear to provide the benefits it's meant to (but it isn't quite as clear). In no case is an idea a piece of intellectual property. Instead, the property is the right to prevent certain actions. The two cases of (attempted) intellectual property theft that I've heard of are the lawsuits by SCO around the Unix copyrights, and some guy in Florida (I think) who sued the author of some open-source Java model railroad software (I think this had to do with patents rather than copyright).

dragonwriter 13y ago
> Intellectual property is permission to prevent other people from doing something. Property -- not just intellectual property -- is the legal power to exclude others from some set of actions.
- tbrownaw 13y ago
  Physical property also has the saying "possession is nine tenths of the law". That is, the legal power to exclude others tends to be based on an underlying reality.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > Physical property also has the saying "possession is nine tenths of the law". Which saying is (a) not accurate of physical property, and (b) insofar as it does relate to real legal principles applicable to physical property, those principles are also applicable to intangible personal property. Really, its more about a presumption against proprietary rights -- as property is the right to exclude others, if ownership can't be proven, no one can be excluded, and whoever is taking an action which would be excludable by another's ownership is safe, even if they cannot prove that they are the owner who would have the right to exclude others.

dragonwriter 13y ago

> Intellectual property is permission to prevent other people from doing something. Property -- not just intellectual property -- is the legal power to exclude others from some set of actions.

tbrownaw 13y ago
Physical property also has the saying "possession is nine tenths of the law". That is, the legal power to exclude others tends to be based on an underlying reality.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > Physical property also has the saying "possession is nine tenths of the law". Which saying is (a) not accurate of physical property, and (b) insofar as it does relate to real legal principles applicable to physical property, those principles are also applicable to intangible personal property. Really, its more about a presumption against proprietary rights -- as property is the right to exclude others, if ownership can't be proven, no one can be excluded, and whoever is taking an action which would be excludable by another's ownership is safe, even if they cannot prove that they are the owner who would have the right to exclude others.