Types of intellectual property

What intellectual property is

Intellectual property (IP) is what a business owns that has no physical form — its brand, its inventions, its designs, its recipes, its written and creative work.
For many New Zealand exporters, IP is the business. The physical product can be copied; the brand, the formulation and the reputation are what cannot.
IP matters more in a global business because the business is operating where it cannot watch. A competitor in a distant market can copy a product long before the owner notices.

The main types

Trade mark — a sign that identifies the business's goods or services: a name, a logo, a shape, sometimes a sound or colour.
- Registered per country, for renewable terms of ten years in New Zealand.
- It protects the identity, not the product. Anyone may make a similar oat bar; nobody may sell it under your name.
- Registration is what makes it enforceable, and it must be done in every market the business sells in.
Patent — protection for a genuinely new invention: a device, a process, a composition.
- Requires the invention to be new, inventive and useful, and the application publishes how it works.
- Lasts up to twenty years, and again is granted country by country.
Registered design — protects the appearance of a product: its shape, pattern or ornamentation.
Copyright — protects original written, artistic, musical and software work.
- Arises automatically when the work is created; no registration is needed in New Zealand.
- Protects the expression, not the idea.
Trade secret — information the business simply keeps confidential: a recipe, a supplier list, a process setting.
- Costs nothing and lasts as long as the secret holds.
- Has no protection at all once it leaks, and none against someone who works it out independently.
Plant variety rights — protection for a new plant variety, which matters in New Zealand horticulture.

Choosing between patent and secrecy

This is a genuine strategic decision, and a good source of an Excellence comparison.
Patent:
- gives an enforceable monopoly for up to twenty years
- but publishes the invention, so competitors can read exactly how it works and design around it
- and is expensive to obtain and to enforce, in every country separately
Trade secret:
- costs nothing and never expires
- but offers no protection once it is out, and none against reverse engineering
- and is only realistic where the secret can actually be kept — a formulation can be, a visible mechanism cannot
The rule of thumb: patent what a competitor could see and copy; keep secret what they could not work out from the product itself.

What intellectual property is

Intellectual property (IP) is what a business owns that has no physical form — its brand, its inventions, its designs, its recipes, its written and creative work.

For many New Zealand exporters, IP is the business. The physical product can be copied; the brand, the formulation and the reputation are what cannot.

IP matters more in a global business because the business is operating where it cannot watch. A competitor in a distant market can copy a product long before the owner notices.

The main types

Trade mark — a sign that identifies the business's goods or services: a name, a logo, a shape, sometimes a sound or colour.

Registered per country, for renewable terms of ten years in New Zealand.
It protects the identity, not the product. Anyone may make a similar oat bar; nobody may sell it under your name.
Registration is what makes it enforceable, and it must be done in every market the business sells in.

Patent — protection for a genuinely new invention: a device, a process, a composition.

Requires the invention to be new, inventive and useful, and the application publishes how it works.
Lasts up to twenty years, and again is granted country by country.

Registered design — protects the appearance of a product: its shape, pattern or ornamentation.

Copyright — protects original written, artistic, musical and software work.

Arises automatically when the work is created; no registration is needed in New Zealand.
Protects the expression, not the idea.

Trade secret — information the business simply keeps confidential: a recipe, a supplier list, a process setting.

Costs nothing and lasts as long as the secret holds.
Has no protection at all once it leaks, and none against someone who works it out independently.

Plant variety rights — protection for a new plant variety, which matters in New Zealand horticulture.

Choosing between patent and secrecy

This is a genuine strategic decision, and a good source of an Excellence comparison.

Patent:

gives an enforceable monopoly for up to twenty years
but publishes the invention, so competitors can read exactly how it works and design around it
and is expensive to obtain and to enforce, in every country separately

Trade secret:

costs nothing and never expires
but offers no protection once it is out, and none against reverse engineering
and is only realistic where the secret can actually be kept — a formulation can be, a visible mechanism cannot

The rule of thumb: patent what a competitor could see and copy; keep secret what they could not work out from the product itself.