A.IP Rights cover products or (usually) product features/components

The overall practical goal of IP law is to secure valuable rights that help businesses make money. In the case of a simple product, sold directly to consumers, this translates into an obvious strategy: get as many IP rights as you can, have them defined as broadly as you can, and protect the product from market competition as well as you can for as long as you can.

For example, if your company was the first to develop the “Rubik’s Cube” puzzle, you might file a broad patent on the basic design. A figure from an actual early patent (Erno Rubik, U.S. Patent 4,378,116, “Spatial Logical Toy,” issued March 29, 1983) is shown here:

To protect the revenue stream from this toy, you might (1) file a broad patent on the basic design, and possibly some additional patents on manufacturing techniques, improvements in components of the toy (such as the inner mechanism); (2) file trademark applications in all major countries for a range of marks including “Rubik’s Cube,” “Rubik,” “Rubik Puzzle,” and so on; (3) place a copyright notice on the instruction manual and puzzle solving suggestion pages that are shipped with the toy; and (4) (for trade secrets purposes) mark as confidential all documents relating to manufacturing techniques and marketing plans, while also controlling access to manufacturing facilities and the location of strategic marketing planning. Other steps can be taken as well as the business grows and evolves.

Especially in the case of a broad, early patent, a single IP right can cover the entire product, which is sold directly to end customers. This is the simple - and rare - case where a single IP right “maps” onto a single consumer market. Strategy in such a case will mostly involve stretching out the period of protection and planning ahead for the day when the basic patent expires. (Much of the strategy in the pharmaceutical industry starts with this approach, because a single patent often covers the active ingredient or molecule in a valuable drug product.)