2. Who needs property rights?

Every commercial business which manufactures or sells products or develops particular methods or processes needs property rights. Every undertaking which provides services and has a good reputation to defend is dependent on protection by industrial property rights. However, it is not only for product manufacturers that the use of property rights is of major economic importance, but also for handicraft businesses, trading companies and, in particular, freelance inventors. Property rights are particularly essential for freelance inventors because without appropriate protection for their work they are not able to exploit it at all: as a rule, a property-right application is a prerequisite for the grant of a licence or the sale of an invention.