This document discusses definitions of intellectual property. It summarizes two definitions provided by Philips and Firth - a "colloquial" definition referring to anything produced by the human brain, and a "legal" definition focusing on the rights conferred upon such intellectual productions. The document argues the legal definition is more accurate as it considers property in the legal sense of rights to possess or control an item rather than the item itself. Intellectual property is thus best defined as one's right to exploit their intellectual creations, with this right protected by intellectual property law for the creator's benefit.
This document discusses definitions of intellectual property. It summarizes two definitions provided by Philips and Firth - a "colloquial" definition referring to anything produced by the human brain, and a "legal" definition focusing on the rights conferred upon such intellectual productions. The document argues the legal definition is more accurate as it considers property in the legal sense of rights to possess or control an item rather than the item itself. Intellectual property is thus best defined as one's right to exploit their intellectual creations, with this right protected by intellectual property law for the creator's benefit.
This document discusses definitions of intellectual property. It summarizes two definitions provided by Philips and Firth - a "colloquial" definition referring to anything produced by the human brain, and a "legal" definition focusing on the rights conferred upon such intellectual productions. The document argues the legal definition is more accurate as it considers property in the legal sense of rights to possess or control an item rather than the item itself. Intellectual property is thus best defined as one's right to exploit their intellectual creations, with this right protected by intellectual property law for the creator's benefit.
Engaging in someone elses intellectual property can be likened to reading a book or an
article, watching a movie or a play, listening to speakers of lectures and seminars, looking at a companys logo or even simply occupying oneself to a new smartphone technology. Might it be conscious or not, this experience is quite familiar for everyone but despite this rather established familiarity, the term remains to require some elaboration for simple experience might not directly imply a thorough comprehension of the idea at stake. Philips and Firth offers two definitions of intellectual property, one being the colloquial definition and the other as the legal definition (3). According to them, colloquial intellectual property could be thought of as anything that is produced from the exercise of the human brain, might it be ideas, inventions, poems, designs, etc. (3). The other legal definition is then noted to be specifically concentrating on the rights that are conferred upon such produce[s] of the mind (Philips and Firth, 3). This non-legal definition can be opined to result from a rather crude isolation of the term intellect from the parent term. Intellect is defined as a faculty and deriving from this commonsensical analogy, it is not strange that the colloquial definition proposed by Philips and Firth would arise (Soanes and Stevenson). A crucial factor to properly conceptualize what intellectual property is involves placing the term property to some legal definition. Property, in the conventional use, refers to a thing or things belonging to someone (Soanes and Stevenson). However, in the legal sense of the term, emphasis is placed on the type of right to possess, control or own the item in question rather than on the item itself (Walston-Dunham 370). By using the legal sense of the term property, Phillips and Firths definition is justified and intellectual property can be identified in the simplest sense as ones right to his/her intellectual produces. Intellectual property can best benefit the creator if he/she is conferred exclusive "right to the exploitation of his/her work which is then made possible by the protection advanced by the intellectual property law (Philips and Firth 5; Colston 1). Protection of intellectual property also has a commonsensical side which is exemplified in what Philips and Firth identify as the practical way of applying such protection (10). They discuss the practical approach in intellectual property protection in two evidently logical ways. The first method succeeds in denying unwanted outsider access accomplished through the creators choice of literally not
(Cambridge Studies in Cognitive Linguistics) Jeannette Littlemore-Metonymy - Hidden Shortcuts in Language, Thought and Communication-Cambridge University Press