Intellectual Property 101

For many startups and scaleups, intellectual property (IP) is crucial to the company's competitive advantage and, therefore, its overall success and value. This bulletin provides a refresher on the common categories of IP in Canada and best practices for protecting and leveraging IP that companies should implement and investors should seek.

What Constitutes IP in Canada?

Intellectual property refers to intangible creations of human intellect from which legal rights, akin to other property rights, may result. There are four common types of IP:

• Patents protect inventions, the solutions to technical challenges. Inventors must apply to the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) to obtain patent rights.