Z:gnu-www-ja-stallman-mec-india--b0eb5a-But second and even more funda/en

But second and even more fundamental, that term is actually a catchall for totally different areas of law, including copyrights, patents, trademarks, trade secrets and various other things as well. Now these areas of the law in fact have almost nothing in common. What the laws say is totally different from one to the next. Their origins are completely independent and the public policy issues they raise are completely different. So, the only intelligent way to think about them is to pick one of them and think about it; think about them separately.