Copyright vs. Trademark vs. Royalties vs. Intellectual Property in the UK, the US, Germany, Belgium and France

Today, a non-US-elections-related post... I faced off copyright-related terms: copyright (droit d'auteur/Urheberrecht/auteursrecht(en)) vs. trademark (marque déposée/Marke/eingetragenes Ware/handelsmerk/merk) vs. Royalties (redevance(s)/Abgabe(n)) vs. intellectual property (propriété intellectuelle/geistiges Eigentum/intellektuelles Eigentum/intellectueel eigendom). I did this for the UK, the US, Germany, Belgium and France. I included the translation of the terms in French, German and Dutch in the Google Insights for Search analysis when applicable so as to get a more accurate picture. First, I faced off the different countries for copyright:



There was the most interest in copyright in the UK, the least in France. A November 2004 peak in the UK could be observed: I don't know why. Over the 2004-now time span, Google-popularity went down in every country however. How about trademark?



This time, Belgians were the most interested, the French again the least. The UK was markedly less into trademark than copyright while Belgium was vice versa. I wonder if this had to do with different legislative traditions? It could also be that Marke and merk are too generic. I redid this analysis without those two terms:



This did change the situation. The US were now clearly the most interested in trademark and Germany and Belgium ended up much lower. Again, all countries' trend lines declined through time. Next, royalties:



France was no. 1 and this was substantially due to a big peak in October 2005. This time too, I wasn't able to ascertain why. There is no real Dutch term for royalties, the English word is commonly used. The US scored the lowest for this term. Looking at the evolution of the trend lines January 1, 2004 through now, the downward trend was esp. noticeable in France but the UK, the US and Germany also saw declines. Belgium on the other hand saw a slight increase. Finally, let's look at the intellectual property graph:



The US and the UK basically shared the lead while German Googlers cared the least for geistiges Eigentum. All countries lost interest between 2004 and now.

It seemed to me that obtaining country graphs for the four terms together would be useful. I started with the UK:



Copyright towered over the three other terms, even when not counting the big November 2004 peak. Next, the US:



Copyright again ruled, intellectual property was the least interesting. Let's look at Germany next:



Copyright and trademark were at the top, intellectual property hardly showed. However, when we took out the too generic term Marke, the graph changed drastically:



Copyright was alone in charge now, both trademark and intellectual property held hardly any interest. Then I analyzed Belgium:



Trademark was no. 1, intellectual property was in the doldrums. I eliminated merk again:



Copyright dominated while trademark almost disappeared; even intellectual property scored higher. At long last, I investigated the data for France.



Royalties won out in la douce France, trademark hardly existed. Intellectual property held some interest.