As owner, you have the right to drive your car, store it away in a garage, rent it, sell it, or do just about anything else you want with it. Most importantly, you have the power to exclude others from using your asset. So it is with intellectual property. The owner of an intellectual property asset commands the exclusive right to decide how it will be used.
Intellectual property exists in information, symbols, concepts, or creative expression.
But like any other piece of property, be it your car or any other good, intellectual property results largely from the expenditure of human capital. This is why the law protects ownership of it. Imagine how unfair and wasteful it would be if an originator's effort could be pirated by anyone else. Congress and the courts of this country have developed a very detailed set of legal rules designed to give owners of intellectual property a monopoly over their mental products. The rules differ based on the various kinds of products the mind can create.