Intellectual Property (IP) is an issue of utmost importance to inventors and innovators that is often overlooked. In this post, we describe what IP is and provide URLs with information about different IP topics of interest to people in the (open) innovation community.
According to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a specialized agency of the United Nations, Intellectual Property can be divided into two categories: Industrial Property, and Copyrights (http://www.wipo.int/about-ip/en/index.html). WIPO defines industrial property to include "inventions (patents), trademarks, industrial designs, and geographical indications of source" and copyright to include "literary and artistic works such as novels, poems and plays, films, musical works, artistic works such as drawings, paintings, photographs and sculptures, and architectural designs."