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Intellectual Property

This guide is intended to provide those researching issues in Intellectual Property Law with a starting point for their studies.

About This Guide

This Research Guide is intended to provide those researching issues in Intellectual Property Law with a starting point for their studies.  Intellectual Property is a broad area in the law, comprising the three distinct but interconnected doctrinal areas of Copyright, Patent, and Trademarks.  In addition, this Guide includes resources pertaining to a fourth type of intellectual property: trade secrets.

This Research Guide is organized into five sections, with one section providing resources on the overarching area of intellectual property, and the remaining sections each corresponding to one of the foregoing specific doctrinal areas.  Each tab in the navigation bar above will take the researcher to a variety of materials - both print and online - that should assist them in their study of and research into Intellectual Property Law and its component parts.

Intellectual Property

Intellectual Property is a broad area of law, comprising three primary doctrinal areas and concerned with the legal protection of different types of 'creations of the mind'.

As defined by Black's Law Dictionary (11th Ed. 2019) the term INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY means/refers to:

"1. A category of intangible rights protecting commercially valuable products of the human intellect. • The category comprises primarily trademark, copyright, and patent rights, but also includes trade-secret rights, publicity rights, moral rights, and rights against unfair competition. 2. A commercially valuable product of the human intellect, in a concrete or abstract form, such as a copyrightable work, a protectable trademark, a patentable invention, or a trade secret."

Getting Started

The following study aids provide a general overview of the law of Intellectual Property.  They include sections touching on Copyright Law, Patent Law, and Trademark Law.

NOTE:  The links below will take the user to the Law Library's online study aids collection.  The inclusion of a Call Number indicates that the Law Library also has the particular title in print, although the print resource may be an earlier edition of the title.

 

The titles below are selected hornbooks that provide a general overview of the law of Intellectual Property, including Copyright Law, Patent Law, and Trademark Law.  These resources will generally provide more in-depth coverage of these areas than the study guides described in this page.

NOTE:  The links below will take the user to the Law Library's online collection.  The inclusion of a Call Number indicates that the Law Library also has the particular title in print, although the print resource may be an earlier edition of the title.

Selected Secondary Sources