The State of Intellectual Property Education Worldwide

Intellectual property (IP) consists of any ideas, concepts, insignias, and symbols that are unique and original to the owner. IP has various broad categories: copyright, trademarks, patents, designs, and other types of information. The concept is best thought of as a bundle of rights protected by law. Trade secrets, expertise, and know-how, are instances of confidential company information that are also covered by IP laws. These ideas and concepts are assets to an organization or country and can be extremely valuable. It has been estimated that IP, as intangible assets, constitutes around 75 percent of the assets of publicly-listed U.S. businesses (Economist 2005). Technology-licensing revenues are estimated to amount to $45 billion in the U.S. and over $100 billion (and growing) worldwide. This demonstrates the importance of protecting IP