Private property is something that an individual or a private company owns.  Property may be physical, as in land, water, or mineral; other tangible possessions, such as valuables, goods, housewares, hardware, or clothing; or intangible possessions, such as concepts or ideas committed to paper, for instance something that is copyrighted (a song, a movie or script, a book), patented (an invention, a discovery), trademarked (a company's brand logo), or preserved as a trade secret (the Coca-Cola recipe).

 

The Founders considered the right to own property privately to be unalienable.  This unalienable right is captured in the phrase in the Declaration of Independence “the pursuit of happiness.”  This right inheres in the founding principles of the laws of nature and individual rights.

 

Conservatives for Property Rights' views on property stem from the great English and Scottish Enlightenment and Reformation thinkers, such as John Locke and Samuel Rutherford, and are consistent with our leading Founding Fathers, such as James Madison.  “Property,” along with the God-given rights thereto, should be broadly understood.

 

Types of property — physical property, personal property, intellectual property — differ in form.  But each remains property, something an individual or a company or other organization may own and control.