Copyright laws provide authors the benefit of economic rewards, while the public receives the benefit of literature, music, and other creative works that might not otherwise be created or disseminated. Trademarks are thought to date back at least 3,500 years to potters' marks used to identify the source of fired clay pots. Trademarks serve to indicate the origin or source of a particular product or service and, related to that, distinguish the goods or services of an enterprise from those of other enterprises. Trademarks also serve an important consumer-protection function in establishing the link between a good or service and its source. The consumer knows, therefore, whom to turn to if he or she receives poor goods or services.
Trade secrets are often the oil that lubricates a technology transfer agreement.
Without it, the parties to an agreement find it difficult or impossible to freely exchange the information vital to making the agreement work. Laws for the protection of intellectual property are not static but change in concert with changes in technology and society. In 1776 it was not possible, of course, to fix a performance in a tangible medium. Today, a multimillion dollar worldwide industry has been built around the fixation of performances in videos, cassette tapes, and compact disks. It is these changes in technology that cause the greatest challenges and greatest opportunities to the intellectual property system.