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,
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Show More“Protecting your intellectual property is crucial to your business.” (Hinson, 2014) When business have intellectual property that is going to be popular or helpful in advancing there business, they have to take measures to ensure that the ideas or prototypes are protected from other that may steal the intellectual property. In the United States, many laws or safeguard steps have to be followed in order to preserve the intellectual property. A business owner has the right to protect the intellectual property, because the failure to do so could result in demise of the business itself.
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
Intellectual property rights give the creator exclusive rights to the intellectual property for varying lengths of time, depending upon the type of intellectual property. It is an intangible asset to a company. Business partners and financial institutions will have confidence to invest or collaborate with the organization. In addition to protecting their creation, business owners can maximize the value of their IPs in many ways. They can franchise, license out or transact their IP.
Intellectual property abounds in our society, it is the direct result of the expression of an idea or other intangible material (Zuber, 2014). Our laws provide rights which are specific to the owner of the intellectual property. Furthermore, intellectual property is protected by laws just like tangible property is protected (Lau & Johnson, 2014). The most widely known forms of intellectual property rights include: trade secrets for confidential information, patents for a process/invention, copyrights for creative items and trademarks for brands (Lau & Johnson, 2014). While these rights may appear very defined, there are times when questions
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.
“The right to own one's genius is not a new concept. However, with the arrival of the digital age, it has become much harder to remain in control of one's intellectual property. Intellectual property has grown from the need to protect one's new invention, to the need to protect a slogan or a color. In other words, intellectual property rights no longer protect solely the interest of preserving a trade secret; it is now the interest to preserve one's monetary gain” (http://classes.soe.ucsc.edu/cmpe080e/Spring05/projects/ip/). This report will look at the pros and cons of intellectual property rights and the impact it has on society.
Trademarks and service marks or brand names which are officially registered in a (at least national) list of trademarks of this legal group may be marked with the registered trade mark, which confirms them the full protection of the trade mark. The registered trade mark symbol is an uppercase letter "R", which is usually represented in smaller letters and is added after the name of the goods and service mark. A trademark serves to identify goods or services using symbols, words, names or a device in order to distinguish from the competition. For example, a well-known name of a product creates trust and represents an economic value. A brand serves to mark the goods or services of a company and thus protects this "good name". This creation of a Trademark ® can take place in different ways as
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.
Intellectual property is an intangible type of property commonly thought of as the product of intellectual activity. Inventions, original works of art, know-how, magazine articles, books, computer programs, photographs, poems, movies, songs, theatrical performances, speeches, experimental results, sound recordings, and music scores are all examples of intellectual property. As such, they all are assets that may be valuable and worthy of protection. Intellectual property law is the body of laws that provide the conditions under which intellectual property may be protected and establish the rights of the owners. Thus, it is important to be able to identify what is intellectual property, on one hand, and how to protect it, on the other. Generally speaking, different areas of the law exist to protect different kinds of intellectual property, with some overlap in some cases.
Intellectual property protection has become increasingly popular in the last century. Many factors have probed interest in this area of the law. A few of those factors include musicians seeking protection of their musical talents through use of copyrights, companies seek to protect inventions of advanced production capabilities, companies create trademarks that differentiate their unique goods from competitors, and companies like Coca-Cola protect their undisclosed ingredients for their products through use of trade secrets. These examples are to gain an understanding of how and why intellectual property rights help companies seek advantages in the marketplace. Furthermore, as the world shrinks because of advancements in transportation and computer technology, intellectual property rights become a large part of entrepreneurship and product development. This paper will discuss the interesting and challenging topic of intellectual property protection. The four basic types of intellectual property include copyrights, patents, trademarks and trade secrets; we will discuss the intellectual properties in the order in which they are listed.
...ers, generates solutions to global challenges, and encourages innovation in order to reward entrepreneurs. The Intellectual Property industry helps to employ over 55 million Americans, and
The patent system grants an exclusive right of manufacturing, selling, and profiting from a specific invention. It is designed with the purpose of providing advance research and development and to encourage broader economic activity; however, complete disclosure is required in exchange for the twenty year protection to become monopoly.
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.
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.
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.