Protection of Intellectual Property
Introduction
There is a lot of controversy about intellectual property and its application to software. There are many difficult, fundamental questions that arise, such as exactly what aspects of a piece of software should be protected under copyright or patent. [5] Despite the fact that applying existing laws to software is not very straight-forward, some sort of legal protection for intellectual property is necessary, as it provides a significant amount of positive outcomes, which will be described further in this paper. We will argue that the legal protection for intellectual property is an ethical obligation from a rule utilitarian ethical framework because it promotes innovation and economic growth to increase the utility of software, resulting in the highest amount of net happiness for society.
Facts and Background
Intellectual property has traditionally been protected by the law in a number of different ways, the two most notable being copyrights and patents. A copyright “protects an original work in the tangible, fixed form in which it has been set down. It protects only the expression of the work, and not the idea underlying the work.” [6] Unfortunately, this rule is somewhat vague when applied to software because there are not clear definitions about what in software constitutes “expression” of the work versus the idea underlying the work, and also because the legal community for the most part lacks technical knowledge about software and programming. [6] For this reason, patenting as opposed to copyright is becoming much more popular among software developers who want to protect their intellectual property, due to the fact that patents protect both the the physical produ...
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2. United States Patent and Trademark Office. “General Information Concerning Patents.”
Internet: http://www.uspto.gov/patents/resources/general_info_concerning_patents.pdf, November 2011 [April 25, 2014].
3. James Boyle. “What Intellectual Property Law Should Learn from Software.” Communications of the ACM, vol. 52, pp. 71-76, Sept. 2009.
4. International Chamber of Commerce, “Intellectual Property: Powerhouse for Innovation and Economic Growth,” in 6th Global congress on Counterfeiting and Piracy, 2011, pp. 3-14.
5. Pamela Samuelson. “Intellectual property for an information age: introduction.” Communications of the ACM, vol. 44, pp. 66-68, Feb. 2001.
6. Harvard University Office Of Technology Development. “Copyrighting Software Vs. Patenting Software.” Internet: http://otd.harvard.edu/inventions/ip/software/compare/ [May 3, 2014].
Define and explain the following: copyrights, trademarks, and patents. Compare the three and provide an example of each. This paper will be non-graded, but it is still highly recommended that you complete this assignment for increased practice and self-improvement.
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
“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).
In week 10 of spring semester we discussed chapter 11’s Intellectual Property Law. “Property establishes a relationship of legal exclusion between an owner and other people regarding limited resources.” In this chapter, we learn that the Constitution allows Congress “to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors to the exclusive Right to their respective writings and discoveries.”
Robbert Van Ooijen. "Why Piracy Is Good For Innovation." 'hypebot' N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2014.
...elated Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) has not only made it easier for companies to register their trademark in one country or another but it has also extended their level of protection against competitors or counterfeiters.
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.
Shultz II, C.J and Saporito, B. (1996), ‘Protecting Intellectual Property: Strategies and Recommendations to Deter Counterfeiting and Brand Piracy in Global Markets’, The Columbia Journal of World Business, 31(1): pp. 18-28.
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.