Intellectual and Industrial Property

Two reasons can be given to explain why countries enact intellectual property laws.

The first is to grant legal protection to the moral and pecuniary rights of creators over their creations and the right of society in general to have access to these works.

The second is to incentivize creativity and to apply the results of knowledge acquired, as well as to stimulate fair commercial practices that contribute, in turn, to economic and social development.

The importance of intellectual property rights was first recorded in the Paris Convention on the Protection of Industrial Property of 1883 and in the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works of 1886. Both treaties are administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).