Modern usage of the term intellectual property goes back at least as far as 1888 with the founding in Bern of the Swiss Federal Office for Intellectual Property (the Bureau fédéral de la propriété intellectuelle). When the administrative secretariats established by the Paris Convention (1883) and the Berne Convention (1886) merged in 1893, they also located in Berne, and also adopted the term intellectual property in their new combined title, the United International Bureaux for the Protection of Intellectual Property. The organisation subsequently relocated to Geneva in 1960, and was succeeded in 1967 with the establishment of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) by treaty as an agency of the United Nations .

The concept's origins can potentially be traced back further. Jewish law includes several considerations whose effects are similar to those of modern intellectual property laws, though the notion of intellectual creations as property does not seem to exist – notably the principle of Hasagat Ge'vul (unfair encroachment) was used to justify limited-term publisher (but not author) copyright in the 16th century. The Talmud contains the prohibitions against certain mental crimes (further elaborated in the Shulchan Aruch), notably Geneivat da'at  literally "mind theft"), which some have interpreted, as prohibiting theft of ideas, though the doctrine is principally concerned with fraud and deception, not property.

As it appears today, Intellectual Property refers to the intangible. In contrast to real property and personal property, it refers to what the minds of mankind have created, usually expressed or translated into a tangible form that is assigned certain rights of property. Examples of IP include musical, literary, and artistic works; inventions; software; and symbols, names, images, designs, business methods, and industrial processes used in commerce. Intellectual property laws include patent, copyright, trademark, and trade secret laws, which typically protect IP rights. Patents, copyrights, and trademarks are creations of statute, where the government recognizes and enforces the public expression of an original idea for a limited period of time.

Read more:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property

http://www.hg.org/intell.html