Intellectual property

Intellectual property

Businesses often have important "intellectual property" that needs protection from competitors for the company to stay profitable. This could require patents or copyrights or preservation of trade secrets. Most businesses have names, logos and similar branding techniques that could benefit from trademarking. Patents and copyrights in the United States are largely governed by federal law, while trade secrets and trademarking are mostly a matter of state law. Because of the nature of intellectual property, a business needs protection in every jurisdiction in which they are concerned about competitors. Many countries are signatories to international treaties concerning intellectual property, and thus companies registered in these countries are subject to national laws bound by these treaties.

Exit plans

Businesses can be bought and sold. "Exit plan" describes how business owners refer to disposing of their business. Common exit plans include IPOs, MBOs and mergers with other businesses. Businesses are rarely liquidated, as it is often unprofitable to do so.

Business

A business (also known as company, enterprise, or firm) is a legally recognized organization designed to provide goods, services, or both to consumers or tertiary business in exchange for money.

Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, in which most businesses are privately owned and typically formed to earn profit that will increase the wealth of its owners. The owners and operators of private, for-profit businesses have as one of their main objectives the receipt or generation of a financial return in exchange for work and acceptance of risk. Businesses can also be formed not-for-profit or be state-owned.

The etymology of "business" relates to the state of being busy either as an individual or society as a whole, doing commercially viable and profitable work. The term "business" has at least three usages, depending on the scope — the singular usage (above) to mean a particular company or corporation, the generalized usage to refer to a particular market sector, such as "the music business" and compound forms such as agribusiness, or the broadest meaning to include all activity by the community of suppliers of goods and services. However, the exact definition of business, like much else in the philosophy of business, is a matter of debate and complexity of meanings.

1. That which busies one, or that which engages the time, attention, or labor of any one, as his principal concern or interest, whether for a longer or shorter time; constant employment; regular occupation; as, the business of life; business before pleasure.
2. Financial dealings; buying and selling; traffic in general; mercantile transactions.
3. Care; anxiety; diligence.
4. That which one has to do or should do; special service, duty, or mission.
5. The position, distribution, and order of persons and properties on the stage of a theater, as determined by the stage manager in rehearsal.
6. Any particular occupation or employment engaged in for livelihood or gain, as agriculture, trade, art, or a profession.
7. Affair; concern; matter; -- used in an indefinite sense, and modified by the connected words.