Entrepreneurship: The Importance Of Intellectual Property In Business

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Intellectual property has played an important role for entrepreneurs. Without intellectual property, businesses would not exist. According to the textbook Entrepreneurship: Successfully Launching New Ventures written by Bruce Barringer and Duane Ireland states that intellectual property is “any product of human intellect that is intangible but has value in the marketplace. It is called “intellectual” property because it is the product of human imagination, creativity, and intensiveness (Barrigner & Ireland, 2012, pg. 395).” Intellectual property is an important issue for entrepreneurial firms because firms can benefit from their work. It is protected through intellectual property laws. According to an article through the American Intellectual …show more content…

Dictionary.com states that a patent is “the exclusive right granted by a government to an inventor to manufacture, use, or sell an invention for a certain number of years (www.dictionary.com).” There are three types of patents: utility, design and plant. Uspto.gov states that a utility patent is “Issued for the invention of a new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or a new and useful improvement thereof, it generally permits its owner to exclude others from making, using, or selling the invention for a period of up to twenty years. A design patent is issued for a new, original, and ornamental design embodied in or applied to an article of manufacture, it permits its owner to exclude others from making, using, or selling the design (www.uspto.gov).” In the textbook Entrepreneurship: Successfully Launching New Ventures states that a plant patent “protects new varieties of plants that can be reproduced asexually (Barrigner & Ireland, 2012, pg. …show more content…

In Entrepreneurship: Successfully Launching New Ventures states that copyright is “a form of intellectual property protection that grants to the owner of a work of authorship the legal right to determine how the work is used and to obtain the economic benefits from the work (Barrigner & Ireland, 2012, pg. 412).” Copyright laws protect any original work that a person has created. There are steps that can be taken to obtain a copyright. It is important to obtain a copyright because copyright infringement is a major issue in today’s society. Copyright infringement is when others can produce an exact copy of another person’s work and take the credit for it. In the case of S.Victor Whitmill v. Warner Brothers Entertainment Inc.S. Victor Whitmill filed a lawsuit against Warner Brothers. According to an article written by Megan Gambino titled Ten Famous Intellectual Property Disputes states that “In the recent movie The Hangover Part II, Stu Price, a strait-laced dentist played by actor Ed Helms, wakes up after a night of debauchery in Bangkok to find a tribal tattoo wrapped around his left eye, his skin still painfully pink. Price’s tattoo is identical to the one Mike Tyson has, and it alludes to the boxer’s cameo in the original 2009 movie The Hangover. Tyson’s tattoo artist S. Victor Whitmill filed a lawsuit against Warner Bros. Entertainment on April 28, just weeks before the movie’s May 26 opening. Since he obtained a

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