[ Types of intellectual property rights ]

Industrial property rights offer protection against imitation, i.e. the adoption of an idea, without payment, by competitors. With the grant of an intellectual property right, the proprietor (e.g. the company and the inventor) receives the right to monopolise for a limited time the manufacture, use and marketing of the “protected subject matter” – which is his well-deserved reward for his creativity and investment.

In the following types of intellectual property rights, the first page in each case sums up the most important information, while the corresponding service pages (“More on ....”) contain more specific details on, for example, fields of application, exclusions and terms of the intellectual property rights.