Intellectual property encompasses creative works such as inventions, literary and artistic pieces, designs, symbols, and images, all safeguarded by law. Various legal protections, including patents, copyrights, and trademarks, ensure exclusive rights to these creations.

A patent is a government-issued license granting an inventor exclusive rights over their creation for a specific period. It prevents others from making, using, selling, or distributing the patented product without the owner's permission.

Patents are essential for protecting innovative ideas and ensuring that inventors benefit from their unique contributions. They apply to new products or processes that demonstrate originality and industrial applicability.

Novelty: The invention has to be new and cannot be a part of the prior state of work, implying that it must not have been published, presented or revealed publicly.

Inventiveness: This is a feature of the invention that involves the advancement of the existing knowledge or state or work that is strikingly evident to any person.

Utility: An invention must be applied to or applicable in the industrial process.

Utility patents: It is granted to anyone who invents or discovers any new and useful process, the machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter or any new and useful improvement thereof

Design patents: It is granted to anyone who invents a new, original, and ornamental design for an article of manufacture

Plant patents: It is granted to anyone who invents or discovers and asexually reproduces any distinct and new variety of plant

Patent registration is required for many reasons.

» It gives legal rights over the product or process invented

» It reduces the tax rate on patented products

» Patenting a product gives the inventor an intangible asset and related rights and actions that come with it

» It gives the inventor an edge over its competitors