Development and protection of intellectual property (IP) is important to the success and even the survival of manufacturing companies. Some of the key components of IP are: composition of matter, processing, and structure. In the development of IP, it is important to characterize the structure of the material or device because better understanding strengthens a patent. In the protection of IP, structural analysis can be used to analyze a competitor’s product in order to see whether it infringes your patent. One might look at the structure for what it is (for comparison with a designed structure) or one might look at the structure to infer what it says about the process that formed the structure. We have used Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) to provide objective information about the size, shape and position of pits and grooves on compact discs and DVD’s.