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Definitions
List of terms for Intellectual property
C
Claims
This refers to the details provided in a patent application that identify the subject matter considered to be an invention or discovery. The claims define the boundaries of legal protection, encouraging patent attorneys to include as many claims as possible in a single application. Dependent claims that refer back to other claim(s) in the same application are also allowed.
Compulsory licence
Use of a patent without the authorisation of the right holder. It is required in TRIPS that a voluntary licence be requested before a compulsory one is issued, and that the patent-holder be paid adequate remuneration. But a voluntary licence can be waived in cases of national emergency, extreme urgency, or public non-commercial use.
Convention on Biodiversity (CBD)
The Convention on Biological Diversity. Signed at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, the convention asserts that natural resources belong to the sovereign state in which they exist — an assertion that some see as conflicting directly with commercial patent rights as defined under TRIPS.
Copyrights
Copyrights give authors legal protection for various types of work including literary and artistic works, motion pictures, sound recordings and computer programs. Copyright law protects authors by granting them exclusive rights to sell copies of their work in a tangible form (printed publication, sound recording etc). Legal protection covers the expression of the ideas contained, not the ideas themselves, which are not required to be novel.
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