Intellectual Property

A simple overview of what intellectual property is and why it might be important

Intellectual property (IP) is concerned with the value and creativity in innovation and new ideas. Ideas come from a huge variety of sources e.g. front-line clinical staff, support services, from collaborative work with industry or academia and in some instances from NHS research and development.

Depending on the type of idea, IP may be concerned with e.g.

• confidentiality
• patent
• trademark
• design
• copyright

Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) protection gives control and ownership to the inventor (or collaborative group), to ensure benefits/rewards are reaped and to encourage further innovation creativity and benefit, and in some cases to enable potential future commercialisation. There are a number of stages in this process - the initial protection of the idea being important and expert support is available for example via the NHS Innovation Hub Health Enterprise East.