It’s always been curios to me that the author or inventor or artist doesn’t own the rights to their work for all time. Why do these things expire?
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The purpose of modern intellectual property as a legal construct is
1. to encourage invention (via patents)
2. to encourage creative works (via copyright)
3. to protect consumers and businesses from market confusion and fraud (via trademark)
Trademarks *don’t* have an expiration, because the need to make sure that the Diet Coke I buy is actually manufactured by the Coca-Cola Corporation (as opposed to Eddie down the block brewing up a batch of *something* and slapping a Diet Coke logo on it) is a need that doesn’t cease, at least as long as the business continues to exist. So trademarks don’t expire, but they *do* require the trademark owner to actively protect and use the trademarks they claim. In other words, (a) Coca-Cola must sic their lawyers on Eddie for bottling and marketing his flavored cat piss under a Coca-Cola trademark (trademarks must be actively protected) and (b) Coca-Cola cannot just claim a trademark on “Eddie’s Strawberry Surprise Cat Piss” and then never actually market a product under that trademark (trademarks must be used).
Patents and copyrights, on the other hand, have to balance encouraging invention and creation with the benefit of the rest of society and culture being able to take advantage of the fruits of those inventions or creations.
Intellectual property encourages invention and creation by granting exclusive rights to the invention or creative work (via patents or copyrights, respectively) to the inventor/creator for a fixed period of time. During that time, no one else except the inventor/creator has a right to make modifications to or derive value ($$$) from the invention or creation.†
But patent and copyright law make sure that such inventions/creations also contribute to society and culture by *not* guaranteeing *permanent* control over the invention/creation to the inventor/creator. This assures, for example, that an important invention can spread widely in an affordable manner for consumers by assuring that *eventually* anyone who wants to will be able to manufacture that invention.
† Footnote added on edit: no one else except the inventor/creator has that right *unless* the inventor/creator contractually licenses that right to someone else. Which is how almost everything intellectually property-related works at scale. E.g. if an author wants a publisher to publish their book, they don’t have to *give away* their copyright to the book; they just enter into a contractual licensing agreement with the publisher to allow them to publish (i.e. the right to make copies) for a period of time or for certain circumstances (e.g. you can license the hardback rights separately from the paperback rights separately from the audiobook rights).
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