Patents and Copyrights Summary and Analysis

Patents and copyrights are a way of claiming property rights and a way of protecting the results of creative thinking. These are ways of acknowledging the mental effort that goes into the production of a product or idea. These instruments protect the mind's effort in producing a good or service or idea and are based on the belief man has the right to what his mind produces. What is produced by the mind is called intellectual property. Patents and copyrights protect intellectual property and mean that ideas cannot be copied without the originator's consent. Patents apply to inventions and copyrights apply to ideas. They both protect the mental work and creativity of the inventor and are one of the reasons people are willing to take risks inventing things in a market economy. Discoveries do not fall into...