The computer industry’s dependency on new programs and innovative software has led to the protection of intellectual property becoming a topic of fierce debate in the field. In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, this issue spurred numerous lawsuits, thereby forcing the courts to set precedent and guidelines about how to prove copyright infringement of software. Many of these cases were in regards to copyright infringement of graphic user interfaces, or GUIs; which consist of the visual cues and representations seen through a particular program or software. GUIs, in essence, determine the “look and feel” of a program. The dilemma that the computer industry faced was how similar one interface has to be to another to constitute copyright infringement. The response to this dilemma would also serve as the response to other issues faced by the industry at the time: Should computers, similarly to automobiles, have a standard “dashboard” (a.k.a. GUI) to enable computers to be more efficiently used (Markoff)? What is the balance between the sharing of information that promotes innovation and the protection of intellectual property?
First, a look at the law. The essential idea behind a copyright is that the holder of a copyright owns the particular expression of an idea, “but not the underlying idea or method of operation,” (TEXTBOOK). In the computer industry, it became difficult to separate what parts of software were ideas and not protected by copyright law and which were expressions of an idea, and thus protected. For example, elements made for efficiency have a limited number of ways in which they can be expressed, so are they protected, or are such elements incidental to an idea and non-protected? Also in consideration were elements ma...
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...ge of information, but there are arguments that this is not the case. For example, some may say that the courts made it too difficult to prove copyright infringement because there are ways for companies to deliberately avoid copyright infringement (look up “clean room design”) while still creating a program that is, for all practical purposes, identical to the original. Taking everything into account, intellectual property law is not perfect. It was established long before anyone could have known about the challenges and intricacies of protecting one’s intellectual property that are seen today. Intellectual property laws were not conceived with technology in mind. This being said, courts are working to hear and rule on such cases in order to establish guidelines and precedent, all while attempting to maintain the spirit in which intellectual property laws were made.
Over the past decade the societal view of creative society has greatly changed due to advances in computer technology and the Internet. In 1995, aware of the beginning of this change, two authors wrote articles in Wired Magazine expressing diametrically opposed views on how this technological change would take form, and how it would affect copyright law. In the article "The Emperor's Clothes Still Fit Just Fine" Lance Rose hypothesized that the criminal nature of copyright infringement would prevent it from developing into a socially acceptable practice. Thus, he wrote, we would not need to revise copyright law to prevent copyright infringement. In another article, Entitled "Intellectual Value", Esther Dyson presented a completely different view of the copyright issue. She based many her arguments on the belief that mainstream copyright infringement would proliferate in the following years, causing a radical revision of American ideas and laws towards intellectual property. What has happened since then? Who was right? This paper analyzes the situation then and now, with the knowledge that these trends are still in a state of transformation. As new software and hardware innovations make it easier to create, copy, alter, and disseminate original digital content, this discussion will be come even more critical.
Intellectual property is an incredibly complicated facet of the law. In the United States, we have many laws in place to control and limit profiting from others intellectual property. The issue is not only profiting from others intellectual property, but not purchasing the property from the originator as well. We will discuss why it is important to protect this property as well as why it is tremendously difficult to regulate all these safe guards. “Intellectual Property has the shelf life of a banana.” Bill Gates
Kapica, Jack. “Copyright and the Mouse: How Disney’s Mickey Mouse Changed the World.” Digital Journal. October 6, 2004. Journal. April 20, 2014.
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
“Copyright is a fundamental right of ownership and protection common to all of the arts” (O’Hara & Beard, 2006, p. 8). “It is a form of intellectual Property (IP)” and it gives the owner exclusive rights to the copyright (O’Hara & Beard, 2006, p. 11).
The World Intellectual Property Organization, Intellectual property is the ‘products of the mind: inventions, literary and artistic works, any symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce’. Intellectual Properties such as Patents, designs, trademarks and copyrights are protected by laws .The US government offers different types of protection for these properties. The Lanham Act (15 U.S.C.A. section 1051 et seq) also known as the trademark act of 1946 provides protection for trademarks. A trademark is defined as a name, a word, a symbol, or device or any combination thereof, adopted and used by a manufacturer or merchant to identify his goods and distinguish them from those manufactured and sold by others. (Miaoulis 1978)
One of the most recent examples of ethics and technology conflicts in the United States are privacy issues and how we cite, distribute and publish intellectual property on the internet. For instance, many corporations and people take advantage of the open access of the internet and the lack of legislation governing the right to post and upload information to the internet. Today, nearly every household in the United States has a computer with int...
Intellectual property is property resulting from intellectual, creative processes. A product that was created because of someone’s individual thought process. Examples includes books, designs, music, art work, and computer files. (Miller R. J., 2011, p. 114) In the music industry a copyright is an important tool for artist to use to protect themselves from infringers. A copyright is the exclusive right of an author or originator of a literary or artistic production to publish, print, or sell that production for a statutory period of time. A copyright has the same monopolistic nature as a patent or trademark, but it differs in that it applies exclusively to works of art, literature, and other works of authorship (including computer programs). (Miller R. J., 2011, p. 125)
Because of its intangible nature, and particularly the increase of the digital domain and the internet as a whole, computers and cyber piracy make it easier for people to steal many forms of intellectual property. Due to this major threat, intellectual property rights owners’ should take every single measure to protect their rights. Unless these rights are either sold, exchanged, transferred, or appropriately licensed for use in exchange for a monetary fee, they should be protected at all cost. In order to protect these rights, the federal and states governments have passed numerous laws and statutes to protect intellectual property from misappropriation and infringement. “The source of federal copyright and patent law originates with the Copyright and Patent ...
We have to remind legislators that intellectual property rights are a socially-conferred privilege rather than an inalienable right, that copying is not always evil (and in some cases is actually socially beneficial) and that there is a huge difference between wholesale piracy'the mass-production and sale of illegal copies of protected worksand the filesharing that most internet users go in for.
At the end of the day, the decision on if and how intellectual property (IP) protection is sought must be made in the context of an organizations IP strategy and keeping in line with the organization goals and objectives. For company who prefer to compete in the free market, copyrighted software is sufficient in protecting the legal rights of the software created. For company whose main objective is to collect licensing rights and back end deals that comes with patent protection, than it is advisable to seek for patent protection. For me, a copyright is more than sufficient to acknowledge an invention and the inventor’s rights to claim.
The computer evolution has been an amazing one. There have been astonishing achievements in the computer industry, which dates back almost 2000 years. The earliest existence of the computer dates back to the first century, but the electronic computer has only been around for over a half-century. Throughout the last 40 years computers have changed drastically. They have greatly impacted the American lifestyle. A computer can be found in nearly every business and one out of every two households (Hall, 156). Our Society relies critically on computers for almost all of their daily operations and processes. Only once in a lifetime will a new invention like the computer come about.
Intellectual property rights are being broken as people are downloading free content through P2P (Peer 2 Peer) networks, and illegal websites online. Production companies can’t do anything about that because developers of this type of software can’t be blamed for what people share. And no one can track the people behind the illegal websites.
Modern society heavily depends on the abilities of computers, Information Technology, and information processing. As such, since access to information occurs mainly through digital means and media, the way information is arranged and presented on the screen is crucial. Because of this need for fast access and easy arrangement arose, in the early 1980s, companies started to work on various graphical user interfaces (or GUI for short). Most dictionaries define a GUI as ‘a way of arranging information on a computer screen that is easy to understand and use because it uses icons, menus and a mouse rather than only text.’ Introducing such software allowed a human-computer interaction on a visual plane, and took computing to an entirely new level of experience. The first GUI started to emerge, as stated above, in the early 1980s, and within the last 3 decades have completely dominated the way in which human-computer communication occurs. Although some sources argue about it, it is acknowledged that the first company to use a proper graphical user interface was Apple. In 1984 they released the Macintosh computer, which used a graphical system to present information on the screen using boxes and taskbars, and utilized a revolutionary pointer device, now widely known as the mouse. Following this event, other companies started releasing their versions of GUI based operating systems, until in 1995 Microsoft presented Windows 95, which soon became a dominant power on the market, and along with its later installments, led Microsoft to be the IT giant of the 20th century. Since its appearance, the GUI have greatly influenced the IT-centered society, and the role computing and digital devices play in its growth.
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.