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Intellectual property is a subject that has far reaching implications for your business. There are several different types of intellectual property that every business deals with. They include: patents, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets.

Intellectual Property (IP) laws vary country to country with some countries having strong IP laws while others have little to none. When asking a question about IP, it's important to include the country that you are concerned with.

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What is the question here? This is very general. There are lots of good specific questions and answers about IP on the site if you do a search. – Susan Jones Sep 5 '11 at 9:08
@Susan. Thanks for the comment. This is a canonical Q&A, part of a series of questions and answers that we get periodically. It's intent is to have a list of resources on Answers that is a good place to start looking up the subject. It's suppose to be general. See the canon tag for more details. – Jarie Bolander Sep 5 '11 at 13:32
Sorry Jarie. That wan't clear to me looking at the question. Good idea though. I wonder if people will actually bother to read them. It would be nice to find a solution to answering the same questions over and over! – Susan Jones Sep 5 '11 at 23:48
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@Susan. No worries. People have been reading them. We try and put these together so there is a least a starting point. So far, it's been pretty good. – Jarie Bolander Sep 7 '11 at 1:16

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One of the most popular and relevant questions and answer to budding entrepreneurs has to deal with Ownership of works created on your own time. This is actually a complex question because the answer has a lot to do with where you live and your employment contract.

As with anything of a legal nature, make sure to contact a lawyer for specific advice.

Some Other Intellectual Property Questions Worth Reviewing

Additional Tags: Take a look at intellectual-property, patent,trademark or copyright to find other useful questions and answers.

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Great work. One piece missing, which is actually the main mistake that people here make, is using outsourcing without proper copyright assignment. So they don't actually own the code written for them... – Alain Raynaud Aug 5 '11 at 15:38
Thanks. That's a good point. Is there an answer about that somewhere or should we just add it? – Jarie Bolander Aug 6 '11 at 0:59

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