At the most practical level, intellectual property is the property created or recognized by the existing legal regimes of copyright, patent, trademark, and trade secret. n17 We also must include property recognized by similar legal regimes. For example, federal law now protect original semiconductor masks. n18 "Gathered information" is another genre of intellectual property. Copyright law protects the particular arrangement of the contents of telephone directories and reference works, n19 while other forms of gathered information may have quasi-property status under International News Service v. Associated Press. n20

Like most subjects, intellectual property has grey zones on the periphery, such as the right to publicity -- whether, in property style, someone can control his public image.