**5. Industrial property**

Industrial property is broadly divided into two main areas.

One area is the protection of distinctive signs, such as trademarks (which differentiate the goods, products, or services from those of others) and geographical indications (which identify a product as coming from a location where a specific characteristic of the product is essentially attributable to its geographical origin). The primary goal of trademark protection is to encourage and ensure fair competition, as well as to safeguard customers by allowing them to make educated decisions about diverse goods and services. If the symbol in question remains distinctive, the protection may extend eternally.

Other sorts of industrial property are safeguarded largely to encourage inspire innovation, design, and creation of technology development. Patented inventions, industrial designs, and trade secrets are all included in this category.

The social goal is to protect the results of investments in new technology development, thereby providing an incentive and means to fund research and development operations. Foreign direct investment, joint ventures, and licensing *Introductory Chapter: Acquisition of Intellectual Property Rights in International Markets... DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101694*

should all be made easier by a functioning intellectual property law. Typically, protection is granted for a set period of time (typically 20 years in the case of patents).

Intellectual property protection laws are founded on a variety of philosophical underpinnings and philosophies. In the area of tangible property, the majority of these notions are rotten. Intellectual property is fundamentally distinct from other types of property in some ways. Philosophical arguments are frequently employed to outline and define the bounds and breadth of protection in an age when intellectual regimes are being strengthened, reinterpreted, and challenged. As a result, it is critical to investigate and comprehend these arguments.
