intellectual property

American  

noun

1. Law. property that results from original creative thought, as patents, copyright material, and trademarks.

2. an individual product of original creative thought.

   Microsoft’s Halo franchise is one of the most profitable intellectual properties in the video game industry.

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intellectual property British  

noun

1. an intangible asset, such as a copyright or patent

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Etymology

Origin of intellectual property

An Americanism dating back to 1840–45

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

intellectual property

Character.ai said before the bankruptcy filing it struck an agreement with Disney in which the entertainment company agreed to pay $20 million to license certain intellectual property from the AI startup.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 13, 2026

Another scheme is from British startup Books By People, which this week announced its certification mark for human-authored works had been registered by the country's intellectual property office.

From Barron's ● Oct. 9, 2026

The more important question may be where the valuable parts of the industry - its people, intellectual property, research and manufacturing - ultimately end up.

From BBC ● Oct. 5, 2026

Kreiz would have no shortage of valuable intellectual property to work with at Paramount and Warner.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 30, 2026

As mass media has grown corporatized—with journalism, publishing, moviemaking, and the music business getting sold and merged into fewer and larger monoliths— geeks feel ever more entitled to take whatever intellectual property they want.

From "Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho" by Jon Katz

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