noun Intellectual Property
plural Intellectual Property
Intellectual property is how lawyers describe rights over things (like music, newspaper articles, code or inventions) that a human mind creates. The word "property" is used because ideas can be owned in the same way that other property is owned.
- Pat is a website developer.
- Alice is a comedian who pays Pat to build her a website.
When Pat writes the code for Alice's website, there are legal rights that regulate who gets to use that code. These are the rights called "intellecutal property". Alice and Pat need to have an agreement that outlines who owns the intellectual property in the code.
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