Through the recognition of intellectual property, the State gives exclusive rights over inventions or creations if they are made available to the general public and thus form part of the public domain.
There are several stages and processes for an idea to become a marketable product. While this idea matures and migrates to a concrete solution it is necessary to safeguard and secure its IP.
Industrial property rights can also be considered as assets of a business or enterprise, especially in countries that make great use of this legal asset, such as the United States, where there are real industries dedicated to exploit these rights.
It is important to clarify that industrial property is a branch of intellectual property that has to do with commercial and trademark issues; therefore, it differs from copyright, which is usually focused on artistic creations.
Every time we talk about “IP” we will be referring to Industrial Property because the development of technologies in the mining industry is useful in this area (with the exception of software, which is considered literary work, so it is regarded as Intellectual Property).
Industrial property aims at protecting the rights, and their legitimate exercise, over creations that include trademarks, invention patents, utility models, drawings, and industrial designs, among others (detailed in Law No. 19,039 on Intellectual Property and its Regulation, which belongs to the Department of Intellectual Rights, dependent on the Directorate of Libraries, Archives and Museums of the Ministry of Education). This norm also typifies the conducts considered disloyal in the scope of protection for undisclosed information because it focuses on trade secrets.
Intellectual property protects those creations that have commercial value. Thus, it is designed to protect innovative activities manifested in new products, procedures or designs, such as commercial activity, through the exclusive identification of products and / or services offered in the market.
This protection gives the holder an exclusive and exclusionary right to exploit his industrial property right. In addition, it is limited to a specific period of time, a period that, once fulfilled, allows the innovation protected by the right to be transferred to society so that its comparative advantages can be enjoyed publicly.