Intellectual Property Overview

Intellectual Property Overview

• Intellectual property (IP) refers to creations of the mind, such as inventions, literary and artistic works, designs, and symbols.
• Organizations are concerned with protecting IP as it represents a source of value (e.g., economic viability).
• IP protection methods include copyrights, patents, and trade secrets.
• Each method has inherent strengths and limitations.

Copyrights

• Copyrights are established by the U.S. Constitution (Article I, Section 8, Clause 8).
• They grant exclusive rights (e.g., distribute, display, perform, reproduce) to creators of original works.
• Copyright protection extends to various creative works (e.g., architecture, audiovisual works, choreography, drama, literature, music, motion pictures, pantomimes, pictures, sound recordings).
• There is a specific copyright term defined by law.
• Copyright infringement occurs when substantial parts of a copyrighted work are used without permission.
• The fair use doctrine allows for the use of copyrighted material without permission under specific circumstances (e.g., balance between author rights and public access), and various criteria are considered.
• Complicated issues of interpretation arise in relation to software copyrights.
• The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is an agency of the United Nations advocating for intellectual property (IP) owners and provides additional protections for electronic media.

Patents

• Patents are grants of property rights to inventors issued by the USPTO.
• They allow inventors to exclude others from using, making or selling their invention.
• Patents must meet specified criteria: be useful, novel, and non-obvious.
• Patents do not cover abstract ideas, laws of nature, or natural phenomena.
• Software-related patents raise complicated interpretation issues in copyright law.
• A significant amount of software-related patents have been issued.

Trade Secrets

• Trade secrets are confidential business information with economic value that require effort or cost to develop.
• The information must be unique or novel and generally unknown to the public.
• Trade secret protection is crucial for business success, as some critical information might not be otherwise protected (e.g., customer lists).
• Trade secret law includes legal advantages (e.g., no time limitations, no need to file, no application fees) over copyrights and patents.
• Confidentiality and protection practices by companies are key to enforcing trade secrets.

Employees and Trade Secrets

• Employees pose a significant threat to trade secret protection.
• Unauthorised use of company information (customer lists etc.) occurs.
• Educating workers and implementing non-disclosure clauses in contracts can help mitigate these risks.
• Non-compete agreements are employed to protect intellectual property from competitor use and have various enforcement standards across states.

Key Intellectual Property Issues

• Issues apply to intellectual property and information technology: plagiarism, reverse engineering, open source code, competitive intelligence, trademark infringement, and cybersquatting.

Plagiarism

• Plagiarism is the act of presenting someone else's work or ideas as one's own.
• Plagiarism can occur in various ways including copying work and passing it off as one's own, or failing to properly attribute sources.
• Students, and anyone, frequently plagiarize, either through misunderstanding or misunderstanding the relevance of proper attribution.
• Plagiarism detection systems are used in academia and beyond.

Reverse Engineering

• Reverse engineering is the process of taking something apart to understand, copy, or improve it.
• This process is applied to hardware and software.

Open Source Code

• Open source code is program source code available for modification by users or other developers.
• Its core premise is that many programmers collaborating can enhance software.
• The GNU General Public License (GPL) is an example.

Competitive Intelligence

• Competitive intelligence involves legally gathering information on rivals to gain a strategic advantage.
• This gathering differentiates itself from industrial espionage which involves the illegal gathering of information not available through other sources.
• This process is often integrated into a company's overall strategic plan and decision-making.

Trademark Infringement

• Trademarks (logos, designs, phrases etc.) differentiate one company's product from another.
• Trademark owners prevent others from using similar marks on products.
• Organizations often sue each other over trademark usage.

Cybersquatting

• Cybersquatters often register domain names containing famous trademarks to resell them at inflated prices.
•  To combat this fraudulent conduct, entities often proactively register all possible applicable domain names.
• Agencies such as ICANN handle these matters.