World Intellectual Property Day vibrates to the rhythm of Music this year

World Intellectual Property Day vibrates to the rhythm of Music this year

World Intellectual Property Day is celebrated every April 26 to recognize the work of creators and inventors around the world and to help us understand how technological innovation contributes to the flourishing of the arts that thrill us and make us vibrate every day.

At the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (SPTO) we celebrated with an event in which we took the opportunity to talk, reflect and, of course, enjoy live music with a surprising performance.

Intellectual and Industrial Property rights such as patents, trademarks and designs plays a fundamental role in stimulating innovation, as they protect the work of artists and allow them to focus on what is really important: creating their art.

This year, World Intellectual Property Day sounds to the beat of music, with its rhythms that make us dance and its lyrics that captivate us and accompany us in the most difficult moments. Because music is the soundtrack of our lives.

Music has accompanied human beings since ever. Even prehistoric people drilled bones to build small flutes. Music requires instruments to make it sound, and that is why its history has always been linked to technological innovation.

From the most archaic instruments made of animal horns, to the most modern mixing consoles that today nightclubs uses around the world, to the refined pianos that delighted the courtiers of European neoclassical palaces, the history of music goes together with the evolution of scientific and technical progress.

Innovations such as the printing press, the gramophone record and, the radio brought music closer to more and more sectors of the population until it became a mass phenomenon.

Later, the appearance of electrical technologies such as amplifiers and loudspeakers led to the creation of new instruments that are very popular today, such as the electric guitar or the electric piano.

Finally, music has not been resistant to the digital revolution experienced in recent decades. The development of computer hardware and software has made it possible to use this technology to compose record and reproduce the music we listen to today.

Intellectual Property rights such as copyrights protect the creations of artists. Industrial Property rights such as patents, trademarks and designs are responsible for safeguarding the inventions resulting from all this technological progress.

The Historical Archive of the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office is both witness and guardian of all this evolution, since it houses on its shelves the files through which the history of music in our country is told. This documentation is accompanied by drawings, engravings and paintings of great beauty with a high artistic component, typical of the administrative practice in the field of Industrial Property during more than a century of history between 1826 and 1939.

We invite you to plunge in its thousands of documents, to explore and learn about the history of music, science and innovation through them.

More information

https://www.wipo.int/es/web/ipday/2025/index