Intellectual property? Which type? Copyright, trademark, patents?
Copyright means a temporary monopoly on fine art, you created it, and whoever you sold the rights to can determine who gets to make money off of it and who does not. (In most countries you cannot sell copyright, it is automatic and unalienable. So only you get to decide who gets to do with your work what you want.)
Trademark means that you get what you expect, and nobody else can label something similar with the same brand and claim that it is the same thing. Unless, of course, you let them get away with it. Trademarks must be registered, and they expire as soon as you don't care anymore, so you must also always defend them against appropriation.
A patent means a temporary monopoly on an invention for a specific purpose. Anyone using the invention for something else is not covered. Anyone using a different invention for the same purpose is not covered. Patents must be registered and paid for, whereupon they are published for all the world to copy, but not sell. (And in most countries, the patent must have a working prototype to be eligible. There aren't many patent offices that will blindly register an application, take the money, and leave it to the public to contest the monopoly on grounds of "prior art", "too obvious", or "it doesn't even work".)
Intellectual property means "don't think of it as a monopoly, think of it as property, which the state has to defend against thieves trying to cut in on my monopoly!" Or in other words: "Intellectual property is anything that lets me dictate how other people use the things they own."
This is about none of these things.
What this is about is personality rights. You have the right to your own name, nobody else may pretend to be you; that would be identity theft. (Although there are a lot of people who share the same name; and some people have more than one name. And then there's transliterations of names. Actually, a name is not a good way to identify someone.) You have the right to your own likeness, nobody else gets to pretend to be you. Except, of course, when there is no danger of the pretense being mistaken for the real thing, such as in parodies (Spitting Image comes to mind) or in biopics.