What is: "Intellectual Property"

• used to refer to a group of laws that create (often temporary) monopolies on intangibles so that they can be bought/sold like tangible property

• areas of law more dissimilar than similar, and use of term creates confusion

• confusion benefits certain special interest groups who gain from these areas of law being complex to understand and navigate

• when talking about copyright, say copyright. When talking about trade secrets, say trade secrets, ...

• the World Summit on the Information Society working group on Patents, Copyrights, Trademarks and related laws suggests the acronym PCT when trying to reference group of laws: wsis-pct.org