Intellectual Property covers different types of proprietary rights designed to encourage innovation by protecting the exploitation of creative activities.

By providing a means for transforming the possession of creations into exclusive rights that can be enforced through legal action, Intellectual Property encourages the development of an industrial patrimony and plays a leading role in our technology and knowledge-based competitive society.

The main Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) are patents, trademarks, designs, as well as copyright. The Intellectual Property System recognizes the fundamental principle that creators or inventors have a right of ownership to their creations and inventions.

The ownership right is transmissible by agreement, by employment or by inheritance, which enables a person or enterprise to take ownership of IPRs that can be uses as part of their business strategy. Generally speaking, the exploitation rights of inventions made by an employee as part of his or her work belong to the employer.

The onus lies on the entitled persons to secure their rights by making use of the established filing procedures and to defend their rights by all available means, or risk forfeiture by leaving the way open to competitors. IPR rights are hence appropriated by the owners staking their claim to keep ahead of competition.

Independent creators and researchers without the resources needed to develop, protect, and commercialize tier creations or inventions have the possibility of transmitting their rights to entrepreneurs who take on the profits and the associated risks and costs of the venture.

Creators, inventors, and researchers in particular academic institutions, without production facilities and commercial establishments, find it to their advantage to take on ownership of their IPRs, which means paying for the initial costs of protection themselves or through sponsors. This then permits them to negotiate the exploitation rights with industrial concerns, or to assign ownership at the right time.

In the case of patents, the filing procedure allows the inventor to keep all his rights for a period of about 30 months for a reasonable outlay, while deferring the relatively high cost for examination and grant in each country. In this way the inventor can gain time on the one hand to develop the invention, check its viability and have a better idea about the prospects for patent protections, and on the other hand to seek an industrial partner.