The term “intellectual property” denotes the specific legal rights which authors, inventors and other property holders may hold and exercise, and not the intellectual work itself. The laws confer a bundle of exclusive rights in relation to the particular form or manner in which ideas or information are expressed or manifested, and not in relation to the ideas or concepts themselves.

They are designed to protect different forms of subject matter. Copyright may subsist in creative and artistic works (e.g. books, poems, movies, music, paintings, photographs, databases, and software) and give a copyright holder the exclusive right to control reproduction or adaptation of such works for a certain period of time.