Tangibility is the property of being able to be perceived by touch. A commonplace understanding of "tangibility" renders it as an attribute allowing something to be
perceptible to the
sense
A sense is a biological system used by an organism for sensation, the process of gathering information about the world through the detection of stimuli. (For example, in the human body, the brain which is part of the central nervous system rec ...
s.
In
criminal law, one of the elements of an
offense
Offense or offence may refer to:
Common meanings
* Offense or crime, a violation of penal law
* An insult, or negative feeling in response to a perceived insult
* An attack, a proactive offensive engagement
* Sin, an act that violates a known m ...
of
larceny
Larceny is a crime involving the unlawful taking or theft of the personal property of another person or business. It was an offence under the common law of England and became an offence in jurisdictions which incorporated the common law of Engl ...
is that the stolen
property
Property is a system of rights that gives people legal control of valuable things, and also refers to the valuable things themselves. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property may have the right to consume, alter, share, r ...
must be tangible.
In the context of
intellectual property
Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, cop ...
, expression in tangible form is one of the requirements for
copyright
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...
protection.
In the context of
international tax law, article 5(1) of the
OECD
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; french: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, ''OCDE'') is an intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate ...
Model Tax Treaty requires to date a permanent establishment to consist of a ''tangible'' place of business. This is problematic concerning the taxation of the
Digital Economy.
In the context of
trade
Trade involves the transfer of goods and services from one person or entity to another, often in exchange for money. Economists refer to a system or network that allows trade as a market.
An early form of trade, barter, saw the direct exch ...
, "tangibles" are physical goods (as opposed to "intangible"
service
Service may refer to:
Activities
* Administrative service, a required part of the workload of university faculty
* Civil service, the body of employees of a government
* Community service, volunteer service for the benefit of a community or a pu ...
s and
software
Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work.
...
).
See also
*
Tangible property
In law, tangible property is literally anything that can be touched, and includes both real property and personal property (or moveable property), and stands in distinction to intangible property.
In English law and some Commonwealth legal s ...
*
Tangible media
*
Tangible user interface
*
Tangible investment
*
Tangible common equity
References
Legal terminology
{{Law-term-stub