下载掌阅APP，畅读海量书库
立即打开
Intellectual Property is a type of individual legal instruments that cover business assets. The Starbucks Coffee name and logo are IPs. Same with many company names, like Didi.com and Geely Motors. The copyright in a TV show, book or software program is an IP. A patent covering a new potato peeler for the kitchen is an IP. Same with a patent on the design of a tiny antenna inside a mobile phone. Even the secret way a company runs its process to roll out flat glass panels, or make specialty steel, can be an IP.
The total stock of IP rights a company holds is what we will refer to as its IP portfolio. Thus many companies protect numerous separate trademarks as part of an overall brand strategy. So they may obtain separate trademark registrations for the company name; a graphic logo (such as the Nike Swoosh), even a distinctive shape of a product (the Kit Kat candy bar, for example) or a product package (such as a soy sauce bottle shaped like a Panda bear). Taken together, trademarks on these various assets make up the trademark portfolio.
So too with copyrights, patents and trade secrets. They all typically come in bunches when a company reaches a certain size. So it is these bunches, or portfolios, we will typically be talking about. To understand what goes into these portfolios, we need to say a few brief words about each type of IP right.