How to Identify: IP Law

IP lawyers are concerned with intellectual property in two main aspects - to protect a creator's intellectual property through the registration of patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets and the legal pursuit of those who infringe on that creator's intellectual property rights.  From a legal perspective, the identification process for intangibles begins with determining whether or not an intangible is legally protected.  The most common example in this category is a patent.  Know-how, on the other hand, is neither protected nor documented in the public domain which makes it much more difficult to identify.  For example, a patent registration immediately indicates the existence of an intangible asset, whereas the know-how to make a special product cannot be identified by a professional outside the multinational, i.e. it consists of mostly "hidden IP".  Other types of intangibles which are more easily identified by IP lawyers are registered trademarks or copyrights.  Information on these types of intangibles can usually be found using resources such as the US Patent Office, the European Patent Office, the European Trademark Register, and the World Intellectual Property Organization.  Once an intangible is identified and the level of protection is determined, IP lawyers can then determine whether infringement has occurred and can push legal ramifications on those parties believed to have violated such protections.