intellectual property
Americannoun
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Law. property that results from original creative thought, as patents, copyright material, and trademarks.
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an individual product of original creative thought.
Microsoft’s Halo franchise is one of the most profitable intellectual properties in the video game industry.
noun
Etymology
Origin of intellectual property
An Americanism dating back to 1840–45
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Shein has been accused repeatedly of intellectual property infringement, disclosing in July that it was facing more than 40 related lawsuits.
From Barron's ● Aug. 24, 2026
The German artist Albrecht Dürer initiated one of the first known intellectual property lawsuits.
From Salon ● Aug. 23, 2026
“ByteDance respects the intellectual property rights that underpin creative industries around the world, and we believe responsible innovation in AI goes hand in hand with meaningful protections for rightsholders,” ByteDance’s Rogovin said in the statement.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 17, 2026
Professor Emily Hudson, intellectual property specialist at Oxford University, says copyright laws in the UK are different to those in the US.
From BBC ● Aug. 15, 2026
Inseparable from the idea of discovery were the ideas of progress and intellectual property.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
