Intangible Assets

Being intellectual property, trademark, copyright and patents are known to belong to company's intangible assets. As for trademarks, they are used to distinguish goods of a certain company, thus easily identifying the one in question. Trademarks of some famous companies are known by customers all over the world, such as trademarks of some automobile-producing companies (Mercedes, Toyota, BMW), food production companies (McDonald's, Coke), computer-producing corporations (Microsoft, IBM) etc. Being a form of property and identifying either a product or a service, each of these symbols belongs to the company that uses it. According to the adopted laws a trademark can consist of words, letters, numbers, names, colours, signs or any other combinations, a company's name often being used as a part of a trademark, for example IBM Personal Computer. The law prohibits to use trademarks for either direct or indirect sale of goods by other companies. Some competing companies trying to use famous trademarks for selling their own goods, there exists a law prohibiting counterfeiting or using the original trademarks. Thus, the law ensures an exclusive right of the trader to use an individual mark and protects this right in the same way as other forms of private property.

Unlike trademarks copyright only protects the words, notes or images that the creator used, but it doesn't protect any ideas or concepts described by the work. Having published his new investigation, for example a new method for synthesizing chemical substances, a scientist uses the copyright to prevent others from copying the words of his article. Anybody is able to use the described method, so to protect the process the scientists must apply for a patent. Nowadays copyright law is of great importance for many industries, especially in book publishing, film production, music recording and computer software, as it protects the rights of the authors of the creations. Although every country is interested in copyright protection and several important agreements dealing with international copyright protection were signed, some countries have a large market of counterfeit goods available at very low prices and copyright owners suffer great losses.

Like trademark or copyright, a patent is recognized as a kind of personal property, a patent holder having the exclusive right to make, use or sell an invention usually for a limited period. Patents are given by the government for new and useful machines, manufactured products, new chemical compounds, foods, medical products, industrial processes or significant improvements of the existing ones. It is important that patents are seldom granted for simple improvements or modifications of the existing products. With the development of commerce and international business, there is a need for bilateral patent agreements between nations. These treaties can facilitate the process of obtaining patents by inventors in a foreign country where they are going to manufacture, use or sell their inventions.

One should know how long he can use his right for these forms of intellectual property. Most countries demand that the right to a trademark should be registered with the proper government agency and one can lose the right by failing to renew the registration. The copyright lasts for the life of the author plus 50 years, but if a work is created by the employee at his job, the copyright belongs to the employer and lasts 75 years from publication or 100 years from its creation. The duration of patents varies from 16 to 20 years in most countries.