Whether you’re a painter, a musician, a scriptwriter, a chemist, or an electrical engineer, creativity and intellectual property rights go hand-in-hand.
The form of intellectual property may differ, but the guiding principle remains the same; those who create or invent should be able to enjoy exclusive rights to their invention and profit from their discovery.
For World IP Day 2025, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has thrown the spotlight on IP and music. As WIPO says, “music is a universal form of creative expression and IP rights play a pivotal role in supporting a vibrant and diverse landscape.” Without enjoying the rights to their music through IP protection, a budding musician may not have the means to continue to do what they love in creating and expressing themselves.
Forms of expression and distribution may have changed radically since the early days of the printing press and 45 rpm records, but it has become widely accepted that creators in the arts are entitled to protect their works through copyright. And, thanks to this protection, every time a musician’s latest track is played on your local radio station or streamed through the likes of Spotify, the artist receives a small royalty which they can use to produce a new album or launch a tour. The same is true for movie studios and streaming platforms, which use copyright to protect their shows and to profit from their content for years to come.
Some people may be familiar with the importance of IP through copyright, which covers a favorite album or movie, or through a trademarked brand, which helps a business connect with consumers. However, fewer people are familiar with the same role that patents play in areas like wireless and video connectivity. I would argue that of all the forms of intellectual property that creators benefit from today, patents are perhaps the least well understood and, unfortunately, are often the most commonly derided. They shouldn’t be.
As with a copyrighted piece of music from Bob Dylan or Taylor Swift, patent holders own the rights to their discovery for a fixed period of time. In return for these rights, they agree to publicly disclose their invention so that others can learn from it, build on it, and potentially implement it in a new product.
Inventors of foundational technology license their patent-protected inventions so that it can be implemented by a device manufacturer or service provider, and in return the inventor receives a relatively small royalty, much like a musician does when their song is played. In this way, the implementer does not have to bear the cost of foundational R&D, and everybody wins. Implementers benefit from new innovation in their product, consumers benefit from more advanced technologies, and the inventors benefit so that they can continue to invest in future work.
This kind of innovation cycle already benefits the music industry where the development of technologies in areas like cellular wireless, Wi-Fi, and video compression mean that consumers can listen to their favorite tracks or watch their favorite music videos anytime, anywhere. Because of the investments in research by innovators like InterDigital, the likes of Spotify, YouTube, and other streaming platforms don’t have to invent their own proprietary form of wireless connectivity to ensure that users can connect to a platform. Instead, they benefit from the open, collaborative innovation system, which produces standardized technologies such as 5G.
This virtuous cycle of innovation is at the core of what we do at InterDigital. Without IP protecting our foundational research in wireless, video, and AI, we would not be able to continue investing in our engineering teams. Our research in areas like 5G is complex, is backed by decades of experience in various highly technical fields, and is often not implemented in a product for five to ten years.
Thanks to patent protection, we can license our innovation and continue to invest in our research. This is just one reason why IP remains crucial to the economy, because whether you are looking to define a new era or build a new generation, IP rights are at the core of creativity.