The actual effect of IPR laws varies greatly from country to country, however, and in some cases these laws can suppress innovation by limiting the free exchange of information. Additionally, since current IPR laws do not protect the intellectual property of traditional communities, these laws maintain the dominance of developed nations over the underdeveloped world. Intellectual Property comes in many different forms, with accordingly many different types of intellectual property protection. Inventions, defined by the World Intellectual Property Organization as new ideas that solve a particular problem in a technical field, are covered by patents , which protect the owner of the patent from having his product copied by competitors. Patents are the strongest form of intellectual property protection, since all use of patented invention must be authorized by the owner of the patent, and accordingly do not normally last more than 20 years.
Copyrights protect literary, scientific, and artistic works, as well as computer software.
Copyrights last much longer than patents usually about 50 years after the author s death. Trademarks, another form of intellectual property protection, distinguish the products of one firm from those of other firms in a related field, but for the most part, laws regarding patents and copyrights hold the most relevance for indigenous communities. Existing laws concerning Intellectual Property protection vary in their scope and intent. Each country has its own national IPR laws, with more developed nations tending to have more stringent regulation as they have more intellectual property to protect than do developing nations. Since Intellectual Property plays such a large role in international trade, international agreements serve to regulate between nations in the field of intellectual property.