Intellectual Property Paper
Name:
Institution:
Intellectual Property Paper
Intellectual property can be defined as a branch in law whereby the innovators of particular ideas are protected. This type of property refers to the creations of a person’s brain, which are used in the business world, termed as intangible property. The laws cover a wide range of such ideas ranging from novels, logos, mottos, plays amongst others. These laws have a great importance which is to legally protect and motivate the innovators and artistic professionals to encourage them to express themselves without fear of their work being stolen or imitated. The laws also serve to promote economic growth, as artwork and expressions relating to it are quite expensive in the modern world and may earn the nation a substantial amount of revenue. The laws prevent fraudsters from using the artistic works belonging to an individual or company for financial gain.
Three main ways are available through which intellectual property can be protected in America, which include patents, trademarks, and copyrights
Trademarks
Trademarks are seen as specific markers, which enable consumers to distinguish similar products by observing the different designs on the products (McJohn, 2012). They can be in the form of artistic designs, wording or expression depending on the preference of the inventors and company. In my current workstation, in the Palmers Company, the trademark is a mark at the top of the products written the words ‘Palmers’ inside an orange colored oblong.
Patents
These rights are seen to be exclusive to a particular innovation. The regulation under this law allows the creator of the invention to decide on how it will be used and by who (Merges, 2011). In order to disseminate this information to the public, the holder of the patent releases a signed published document stating the conditions. A patent is granted once the applicant applies with the U.S Patent and Trademark Office (Miller, 2012). There are several types of patents. The utility patent offers protection coverage of practically everything used in the process of creating the property and any improvements made thereafter. The next type is the plant patent. This covers the plant species especially the asexually reproductive ones. The last type is the design patent, the protection covers any design articles published by a production or manufacturing company. They last for a great amount of time thus offering prolonged protection.
Copyrights
The innovator of a particular work is granted exclusive rights to it for a limited duration of time (Miller, 2012). It is applicable to wide range of works. However, it has several restrictions such as coverage of ideologies and data is not part of the rights it grants.
Trade secrets
These can be defined as information concerning a company in terms of production, policies, practices, designing amongst others (McJohn, 2012). In the cosmetic industry, trade secrets may include the ingredients of the various products being manufactured. For instance, the Palmers products are widely used and loved because they are efficient in clearing stretch marks and keeping the skin supple and moisturized. Any attempt by a worker of the company to sell such a secret to the rival companies such as Nivea, Vaseline or Revlon is seen as a violation of the Economic Espionage Act of 1996 and is thus brought to court as a federal crime (Merges, 2011).
Intellectual
property laws are beneficial to the companies and the business world in
general. They develop competition as the companies struggle to make better
products and thus compete for the consumers. The same concept also motivates
the ideologists and innovators to produce better versions of their previous
ones thus increasing the competition bar (Miller, 2012). This is highly
encouraged as the competition boosts the economy and further leads to the
success of the best companies in industrialization (McJohn, 2012). In terms of trademarks,
there is provision of competitive advantage. In my line of work, one realizes
that many companies exist that offer products that might be the same in terms
of quality and packaging, but one particular line of products is preferred. The
reasons is because clients tend to familiarize with products which have been in
existence longer in the market and owing to the fact they are familiar with the
trademarks, they opt for the product during shopping. This creates a sharp
competition between the old and the new products.
References:
McJohn, S. M. (2012). Intellectual property: Examples & explanations. New York: Wolters Kluwer Law & Business.
Merges, R. P. (2011). Justifying intellectual property. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
Miller, R. Jentz G. (2012) Business law today, the essentials: Text and summarized cases (10th ed). Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.