Ethics and Intellectual Property In today’s highly competitive business world, innovation, creativity and technology are the essential ingredients that lead to business success. Developing and leveraging those innovations provides organizations with a competitive edge and long term success. Therefore, it is imperative that businesses protect their intellectual properties due to the resources and funds they invest in the development of indigenous products and services. Furthermore, it is critical that an organization understand the importance of their intellectual property and how to protect it.
Importance of Intellectual Property Businesses have many valuable assets, including their intellectual property. Intellection property can set
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For organizations, safeguarding their intellectual property is critical to cultivating and preserving a successful business. Moreover, there are several elements, in which an organization can effectively protect their property, including: brand recognition, competitive advantage, creative works, internet presence and social media (Klemchuk, 2014).
Brand Recognition An organizations brand is one of its most valuable assets. It defines the identity of the company and what it has to offer the consumer. While most companies understand the importance of brand image, they lack in knowledge of how to build and sustain their brand by protecting their intellectual property. Once an organizations trademark is created, the company should immediately register their trademark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Competitive Advantage Trade secrets and confidential information fall under the category of intellectual property. Therefore, in order for an organization to protect themselves from trade secret theft, it is important they receive a patent on the technological innovations (Klemchuk, 2014). Additionally, employee confidentiality agreements and timely patent registration are key areas when protecting trade
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As society patents and copyrights has become big business. Patents offices are inundated with applications for patents which in some cases prove that fields like genomics, nanotechnology and software businesses continue to be invented. However, for less ethical reasons, businesses are rushing to the patent office in order to gain a monopoly on goods and services in order to achieve financial gain. Therefore, patent offices have an urgent need to return to their first principles. To begin with, patent applications should be made public. Additionally, patent office’s need to publish the data results when a patent is granted. This would assist in measuring the quality of the patent system and offer ways to promote inventions or impede them. Finally, strict standards need to be implemented in order to make patents more difficult to obtain. As Thomas Jefferson once said, “there should be some embarrassment or hesitation in granting a patent” (Economist,
(7) Hall B. Patents and Patent Policy -. 2007. The 'Secondary' of the 'Secondary' of the 'Secondary' of the 'Secondary' of the 'Secondary' of the 'Secondary' of the 'Secondary' of the Morse H. SETTLEMENT OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY DISPUTES IN THE PHARMACEUTICAL AND MEDICAL DEVICE INDUSTRIES: ANTITRUST RULES. Allison JR, Lemley MA, Moore KA, Trunkey RD. Valuable patents. Geol.
Before Information Technology, tangible property such as land, buildings, goods, equipment etc. was the most valuable asset of a business. Now economic power is in the monetization of knowledge, ideas and innovation. Work or invention which results from creativity such as a new design or manuscript gives the creator the right to apply for a patent, copyright or trademark and to benefit from their authorship of scientific, literary or artistic creations.
In every given business, the name itself portrays different meanings. This serves as the reference point and sometimes the basis of customers on what to expect within the company. Since personality affects product image (Langmeyer & Shank, 1994), the presence of brand helps in the realization of this concept. Traditionally, brand is a symbolic manifestation of all the information connected with a company, product, or service (Nilson, 2003; Olin, 2003). A brand is typically composed of a name, logo, and other visual elements such as images, colors, and icons (Gillooley & Varley, 2001; Laforet & Saunders, 1994)). It is believed that a brand puts an impression to the consumer on what to expect to the product or service being offered (Mere, 1995). In other application, brand may be referred as trademark, which is legally appropriate term. The brand is the most powerful weapon in the market (LePla & Parker, 1999). Brands possess personality in which people associate their experience. Oftentimes, they are related to the core values the company executes.
Intellectual Property Law used to only protect art, music, and literature, but because of technological development, Intellectual Property Law now also protects a greater variety of innovations including designs, inventions, symbols, discoveries, and words. The phrase “intellectual property” was first known to be used in the late 1700’s; however, it was not widely talked about, nor was the Intellectual Property Law in actuality commonly implemented. Intellectual Property Rights slowly gained more attention by mid-1800’s after the Industrial Revolution had taken place: more companies were created, competition between corporations became fiercer, and owning unique innovations were crucial to winning the competition. However, as Intellectual Property
The term “trade secret” is often bandied about without a true understanding of what it is and why it is important. Trade secrets are important because they serve to protect your valuable, and often confidential, information from getting into the wrong hands and being used inappropriately. Every entrepreneur can benefit from knowing these important details about trade secrets.
Brand; - brand is known as uniqueness in term of what products or service the company provides. Brand is also set of insight or image that represents seller. Brand defines symbol, name, term or feature of company’s service or goods. Example of popular brand is apple, Amazon and Samsung.
Intellectual property (IP) is defined as property that is developed through an intellectual and creative processes. Intellectual property falls under the category of property known as intangible rights, which includes patents (inventions of processes, machines, manufactures, and compositions of matter), copyrights (original artistic and literary works of), trademarks (commercial symbols), and trade secrets ((product formulas, patterns, designs). Intellectual property rights has a significant value to both individuals and businesses, providing in the case of large companies, over one half of their value on return. Since intellectual property rights are so important to the U.S. economy and its citizens, federal and state law provides protection, for example, civil damages and criminal penalties to be assessed against infringers. Due to the importance of intellectual property to a business, I don’t think that its protection and enforcement is going to be a thing of the past.
What is brand? Brand is a trade name which can distinguish from other product or service (Intellectual property office, 2013). Another meaning of the brand is to convey the promise or message to the customer (Intellectual property office, 2013). A powerful brand can lead the company to go further in the industry and it can develop the company's potential (Temporal, 2010). Therefore, brand is a signifying of the company.
There are many reason that why is it important to protect one’s intellectual property. Some of the reason are Creator being accused as a theft, Loss of Reputation, Loss of income, Loss of Asset and Loss of Authority Rights.
This article mainly focuses on the ethics and its importance in the daily life and the need of the ethics to the individual and to the society. It mainly focuses on the ethical theories; consequence based theory, duty based theory, contract based theory and character based theory and how these theories are implemented for the copyright infringement i.e. the free access of the copyright material. It explains all the four types of theories in detail with examples and how these are implemented for the given topic. The modern ethical approach has been given based on the four ethical theories and the recommendations based on the outcome of the four theories. It is followed by the conclusion and the references.
A company’s brand is one of its most valuable assets (Green and Smith 2002). Brands owners invest millions of dollars every year in advertising and promotion to raise awareness and create demand for their brands.
Intellectual property laws, principles and best practices can vary tremendously from nation to nation and are subject to almost constant change, particularly in the rapidly developing Asian market. In order to be distinctive and successful, therefore, it’s imperative that the company’s strategy has been specifically tailored to the Asian market based on environmental analysis.
Intellectual property is information, original ideas and expressions of the persons mind that have profitable value and are protected under copyright, patent, service mark, trademark/trade secret regulation from replication, violation, and dilution. Intellectual property includes brand items, formulas, inventions, data, designs and the work of artists. It is one of the most tradable properties in the technology market.
Opposition to intellectual property laws are becoming increasingly common. The moral aspects of intellectual property rights are coming into question, as limiting information and ideas is not benefiting anyone but major corporations. According to Libertarians, advancements may well come to a halt in future years if monopolized ideas are not disseminated for the greater good. On the other hand, disregarding current intellectual property rights internationally is leading to corporations “losing market share dramatically” to copycats producing generic versions of otherwise brand-exclusive medications (Shah, Warsh & Kesselheim. 2013). Priorities must be considered, what is important or beneficial to citizens is rarely what is important to corporations.