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 re ...
s.
In
criminal law
Criminal law is the body of law that relates to crime. It prescribes conduct perceived as threatening, harmful, or otherwise endangering to the property, health, safety, and moral welfare of people inclusive of one's self. Most criminal law ...
, one of the elements of an
offense of
larceny 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, co ...
, 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, educatio ...
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
The digital economy is a portmanteau of digital computing and economy, and is an umbrella term that describes how traditional brick-and-mortar economic activities (production, distribution, trade) are being transformed by Internet, World Wide Web ...
.
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 exc ...
, "tangibles" are physical goods (as opposed to "intangible"
services and
software
Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work.
At the lowest programming level, executable code consist ...
).
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
A tangible user interface (TUI) is a user interface in which a person interacts with digital information through the physical environment. The initial name was Graspable User Interface, which is no longer used. The purpose of TUI development ...
*
Tangible user interface
*
Tangible investment
A tangible investment is something physical that you can touch. It is an investment in a tangible, hard or real asset or personal property. This contrasts with financial investments such as stocks, bonds, mutual funds and other financial instrumen ...
*
Tangible common equity Tangible common equity (TCE), the subset of shareholders' equity that is not preferred equity and not intangible assets, is an uncommonly used measure of a company's financial strength. It indicates how much ownership equity owners of common stock ...
References
Legal terminology
{{Law-term-stub