intellectual property is your identity

IP. Any clue about these two words? You may already know what it may refer through the headline. Intellectual Property. What so important? Why has it become more associated with creativity and its effort to enlarge the industry? 

Intellectual Property, simply from Wikipedia is a category of property that includes intangible creations of human intellect. The well-known type of these are patents, copyrights, trademarks and so on. Many sources pin the origins of Intellectual Property rights to the year 1421 when the world's first modern patent was awarded to an Italian inventor. However, according to Former Lord Justice of Appeal Robin Jacob, the history of Intellectual Property can be traced back to as early as 600 BCE (https://www.mondaq.com/trademark/977124/history-and-evolution-of-intellectual-property). Intellectual Property – refers to creations of the mind, such as inventions; literary and artistic works; designs; and symbols, names, and images (https://www.wipo.int/edocs/mdocs/africa/en/wipo_tiscs_kla_17/wipo_tiscs_kla_17_t_4.pdf).  

Intellectual comes from intellectual (adj.) meaning mind, intellect, intellectual powers. IP is protected by law, which enable people to earn recognition or financial benefit from what they invent or create. Nowadays, these IP things are become more related to the creative world. Today economics is not only determined by industrial scale such as factory, manufacturing, and other physical goods. It is also supported by the service sector and creative industry. While the world survived passing the COVID-19 pandemic, creative industry finds its niche to grow companies while multiplying profits. So, how important IP is? 

According to WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization), there are several types of IP, that is: 

Intellectual property is an umbrella term for a set of intangible assets or assets that are not physical in nature. Intellectual property is owned and legally protected by a company from outside use or implementation without consent. Intellectual property can consist of many types of assets, including trademarks, patents, and copyrights (www.investopedia.com/terms/i/intellectualproperty.asp). Patent filings worldwide grew by 3.6% in 2021. Trademark and industrial design filing activity grew by 5.5% and 9.2%, respectively. Patent filings around the world exceeded 3.4 million, trademark filing activity totalled 18.1 million and industrial design filing activity amounted to 1.5 million. Applications for utility models – a special form of patent right – dropped by 2.5% to 2.9 million applications (https://www.wipo.int/en/ipfactsandfigures/patents). More than 85% of all 3 million patent filings in 2021 occurred in the IP offices of China, the US, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and the EPO. China accounted for 46.6% of the world total. In 2021, China’s IP office received around 1.59 million patent applications. It was followed by the offices of the US, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and the European Patent Office. The top 10 offices accounted for 91.6% of the world total in 2021. And how about Indonesia? Indonesia made it into the top 10 list of highest brand registrations among middle-class earning countries of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). In Addition, also on the top 10 list of simple patent registrations among the WIPO member countries. In sum, we managed to convince the world on how important and effect of IP on the world economy. 

How to introduce and laying the foundation of IP among the excitement of the creative world? 

We often heard the stories about how big a business started from the garage. A name like Microsoft, Amazon, Tesla, etc is familiar with that story. Should we emulate those stories as the first step to starting a business? Depends on the type, strategy, and capital strength we owned. Today we call it as a startup business. Such word tent to have negative connotations or even hyperbole. All the young people dream of having a startup, with little capital getting infinite virtual funding, becoming a large and well-known valuation, ended with wealthy life, spend money on cruises, buying planes and fantastic ATM balance. A reality or mirage? If it were that easy and real. Most of you (correction: us, at least myself) are stuck in first step, finding the idea. About the type of business, about what to do. This is why we need to bring up and keeping the IP. IP such a spirit that moves everything. An IP that leads us, guide us, and supply us on what to do and how we start anything. 

We can learn deep about intellectual property in several YouTube channels. All those channels conclude us that intellectual property nowadays is the new gold. There is shift in a way a person view on one's worth. The value of a person is no longer figured out by what the brand suit he/she wear and/or cars that he/she drove, but more to what idea he/she offer to the world, how fresh it is, how relate it would be and others. We should not be afraid that our ideas will be hijacked, duplicated, or even stolen. It simply because an idea from someone is genuine, different from other. There is always distinctive touch every time the idea executed. The important thing of having intellectual property is how to safeguard it.  

Intellectual property should not be hidden but should be showed and if necessary, declared, as simple as write it in your personal blog or as your linked in portfolio. It is the simplest way to guard against hijacker, duplicator or thief. The more you write it, the more popular it. The more we leave a trail of idea, we will be remembered as idea owner. Track it, find it, sharpen it and transform it into an operational step. Wise man said the best plan is the one that implemented. Circle ourselves with benefited friend that can keep our thought, mood and emotions in a productive, efficient and effective ways to achieve our goals. Certainly, a goal that specified, measurable, attainable, reliable and time bound.