Are Patents Property

Abstract

Scholars debate whether intellectual property is truly property and the lessons learned about property rights in traditional property should be applied to property rights in inventions and other intellectual property.

As we know, Intellectual property protects applications of ideas and information that are of commercial value. Intellectual property rights are like any other property rights– they allow the creator, or owner, of a patent, trademark, or copyright to benefit from his or her own work or investment.

Talking about the term property, the law conceptualizes property as rights to things, as legal relationships between people with respect to objects. There was a recent inclusions done within the definition of property, those are: Company shares; Intellectual property (copyright, trademarks, patents) and Medical science- contentious area.

But still in what ways might we expect patent rights to perform similarly to rights in tangible property? In brief; Property rights provide incentive to invest, to trade, and to finance. Similar economic benefits are ascribed to patents. Patents provide incentives to invest in research and development and other innovative effort. Patents also provide incentives to invest in the commercialization and further development of an invention, and for investors to invest in companies holding patents. In my research I will get into the depth of this debate.

Today, scholars and courts believe that logic mandates that patents are defined differently from real property-patents must secure only a right to exclude. In my research paper I will also deal with the relation between patent right and property right that in real fact the patents can be held as property also look into the ownership or possession as well as the infringements of each right and its penalties under the laws. But still this is the ongoing debate where in present century the patents relation with the real property and how this is an under-appreciated factor contributing to the increasingly tumultuous debates over patent doctrine.