Frequently Asked Questions: Law Library of Congress

Intellectual property (often referred to as “IP”) refers to the legal rights granted to individuals or organizations for their creations or inventions. There are several different types of intellectual property but the main three types are:

• Patents protect technical inventions from being copied, made, used, or sold without the inventor’s consent. 

• Copyright protects artistic, literary, or intellectually created work from other people copying or exploiting the work without the copyright holder’s permission. It gives the creator the exclusive right to reproduce, distribute, and perform or display the work. 

• Trademarks protect a word, phrase, design or a combination that identifies goods or services from being registered by others without permission and helps the trademark holder prevent others from using a similar trademark for related goods or services. 

The Law Library of Congress has published an online research guide to researching the law of intellectual property. The guide begins with a general explanation of intellectual property, followed by print and online resources for further learning about the subject. There are also tabs for resources specific to patent, copyright, and trademark law. For each area of intellectual property law, we have gathered secondary sources, statutes, regulations, treaties, databases for searching records, case law sources, lists of organizations that can assist with applications for protection, and other online resources. Researchers can visit Intellectual Property Law: A Beginner's Guide to start their research.