Real Property Law Briefs

The title to real property is permanent to encourage its owners to develop it, the title to intellectual property is for a time to reward its inventor. Copyrights, trademarks and patents are different aspects of the intellectual property. Servitudes and easements pertain to the use of land by another and primarily come into place to meet some specific necessity. The title to real property is permanent but some intellectual property is limited in the time that is protected.

The real property is owned on the payment of a price and the person owning it may develop it or modify it to suit his purpose. For instance, a person purchases land and then builds a home on it. If he does not have permanent title to the land he cannot build on it. So, to encourage the development of real property the title given to the owner is permanent.

On the other hand in case of some intellectual property, especially patent, the title is given to its owner, usually the inventor, for a period of time. Typically the owner is person who has developed the intellectual property.For example, a person or a company discovers a new anti carcinogenic drug; he is allowed the title to the intellectual property so that he may defray the costs that he has incurred to discover the drug. Also the period of title provides a reward to the owner for inventing the product and sharing it with the government. This title is given to him for some time after which the drug production process or the formulae is made open for everyone.

The purpose of opening it for everyone is to make the formulae available to everyone so that mankind in general may gain from it (Grosheide.W & Brinkhof. J, 2002). Owning real property does not mean that all rights are protected. For instance if the owner of real property leases the property to a person, the owner cannot exercise his rights to keep out the lessee.

Take another example, if there are joint owners of a property and one of the owners decides to sell his interest in the property, he may sell his right to a person who is not liked by the other owner. A patent is for an invention and is a property right given to the inventor. This property right is given by the Patent and Trademark Office.This is given for a period of 20 years in the USA. In contrast the trademark is a name, word, symbol or device that indicates the source of the product and differentiates it from the products of its competitors. The trademark helps prevent the use of a confusingly similar mark.

Finally, copyright is a safeguard given to authors of ‘original works”. The 1976 Copyright Act gives the owner of copyright the exclusive right to reproduce, distribute, perform and publish. The works that are granted Copyrights are intellectual works, musical, artistic, literary, or dramatic.Easements may be put into place either by conveyance like the purchase of land or easement may be put into place by necessity.

For example, if an estate cannot be reached without crossing a servitude estate. Similarly, the servitude is the right that grants use of another’s property. This is a right by which land or property owned by another is subject to specified use by another person. On the other hand easement refers to the right to use the property or land of a different person for a defined purpose. An easement may be put into place by an agreement of the two parties in that case the easement is usually in writing.In some cases, easements may be implied by a court from the actions of the owners.

The easements and covenants can be protected by recording their interest. The easement can get lost if the servient property is sold to a bona fide purchaser without notice (Clarke. A & Kohler. P, 2005).

The easement gets protected by recording the conveyance to be protected and this stops the claim of the subsequent purchaser of being a bona fide purchaser without notice. Easements and servitudes are important because they form obligations that are important for the use of real estate.Easement appurtenant is important because they affect the interest of the dominant real estate. A person cannot sell off this right independently of the estate to which is attached. In law this sale would either kill the easement or be declared illegal.

For instance, an owner of an estate that is accessed through a servitude estate cannot sell off the pathway without selling his estate. The nature of easements and servitudes makes them important. In rural areas it is the access to a mine, sandpit or a spring that makes them important.However, servitudes in urban areas are equally important because they apply to buildings.

The common servitudes allow building rights over others like the right to light and the right to support. To sum, real property is permanent so that it is developed, intellectual property is for a period of time so that the owner gets rewarded. Copyrights pertain to authorship, patents are related to inventions and trademarks are used to identify goods. Servitudes and easements come into place because of needs and contracts and they relate to important aspects of real estate.