How can I protect my intellectual property?

There are several ways in which novel and creative work can be protected, including:

confidentiality or secrecy - the best way to protect your ideas is simply to tell nobody - but this can hamper commercialisation, and in any case is not normally possible or desirable in academia, where the expectation is that research results and new ideas will be published freely.
patents for inventions - new and improved products and processes that are capable of industrial application
trade marks for brand identity - of goods and services allowing distinctions to be made between different traders
designs for product appearance - of the whole or a part of a product resulting from the features of, in particular, the lines, contours, colours, shape, texture or materials of the product itself or its ornamentation;
copyright for material - literary and artistic material, music, films, sound recordings and broadcasts, including software and multimedia