Advantages And Disadvantages Of Intellectual Property

There is just a one person who sells products or services and there are no incentives which help to break this monopoly. There are many monopoly industries in the market. In monopoly, they use patents because they don’t like if someone’s copy their inventions.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) defines anti-competitive practices as the many ways firms restrict inter-firm competition to maintain or to increase their relative market position and profits without necessarily providing goods and services at a lower price or at a higher quality. The American Federal Trade Commission states that anti-competitive practices include activities such as price fixing, group boycotts and exclusionary exclusive dealings. These activities are generally grouped as agreements between competitors (horizontal conduct) and monopolization (single firm conduct).

A patent is a legal document giving inventors the property right to their own invention. A patent didn’t always mean the rights to an invention though. A patent used to mean a special privilege or favor. It also could be used to acquire more land or obtain rights to explore a new land. Presently the patent is used only for the rights to your invention. Virginia Alexandrea from The United States Patent and Trademark Office wrote the article “General Information Concerning Patents” where she described what Patent rights include.

Although the need to protect R & D investment is recognized, there appears to be a need to modernize the laws around intellectual property. What if the original patent owner is unable to continue development in a timely fashion, or chooses to withhold development of a product? Should the patent remain with the owner for the full amount of time if they are unable or choose not to produce an item that has a significant potential to improve lives, public safety or advance technology? What about

Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution provides the federal government with the power to issue patents and copyrights in order “to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries” (U.S. Const. art. I, § 8). A patent provides the inventor with an exclusive right to “use, license or sell and invention,” (U.S. Const. art. I, § 8), as such the product, service, process or design becomes the personal property of the inventor(s).

An Introduction to the Law and Economics of Intellectual Property Author(s): Stanley M. Besen and Leo J. Raskind Reviewed work(s): Source: The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Winter, 1991), pp. 3-27 Published by: American Economic Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1942699 . Accessed: 24/11/2011 08:39

Intellectual property protects legal rights and ownership in the market place through ‘intellectual property rights’. This can include trademarks, copyright, industrial design and patens. These protect brand names, designs and inventions.

From a rule utilitarian point of view, from a macroeconomic perspective, granting software patents by giving the exclusive right to sell, use,

A patent is a twenty year exclusive monopoly on the right to make, use and sell a qualifying invention. This legal monopoly is considered a reward for the time and effort expended in creating the invention. In return, the invention must be described in detail to the Patent Office, which publishes the information, thus increasing the amount of technological knowledge available to the public. To obtain a U.S. patent, an inventor must apply to the Patent Office and demonstrate that the invention is new (as compared to prior technology), useful, and "nonobvious." An invention is nonobvious if it is more than a trivial, obvious next step in the advance of the technology. Software patents can be extremely powerful economic tools. They can protect features of a program that cannot be protected under copyright or trade secret law. For example, patents can be obtained for ideas, systems, methods, algorithms, and functions embodied in a software product: editing functions, user-interface features, compiling techniques, operating system techniques, program algorithms, menu arrangements, display presentations or arrangements, and program language translation methods. Since patent rights are exclusive, anyone making, using or selling the

A patent is defined as “a document issued by a government office which describes an invention and creates a legal situation in which the patented invention can normally only be exploited - manufactured, used, sold, imported - with the authorization of the owner of the patent” (World Intellectual Property Organization). Thus, a patent is a form of intellectual property. Patent infringement occurs when the defendant has violated this intellectual property, by making, using, selling, offering to sell, or importing an infringing invention or its equivalent. “For a court to find infringement, the plaintiff must show the presence of every element or its substantial equivalent in the accused device” (Wolverine World Wide, Inc. v. Nike, Inc., 38 F.3d 1192, 1199, Fed. Circ. 1994).

intellectual property owners have the ability to ask a court to forbid anyone else’s use of their patents, copyrights, or other IP. If someone else starts exercising control over (using) the intellectual property without permission, that use is said to infringe on the property owner’s exclusive rights.

The World Intellectual Property Organization (n.d.) helps one understand the importance of protecting intellectual property. They have spelled out several reasons of this importance including inventing new works in technology and culture, which allows progress to be made that, can be utilized worldwide. In addition, the legal protection of intellectual property encourages the commitment of additional resources for further modernization. Finally, promoting and protecting intellectual property encourages economic growth. It creates new jobs and industries. Protecting intellectual property also enhances the quality and

Intellectual property represents ideas created by minds of humans that require certain rights for their use. Intellectual property gives companies a competitive advantage and attracts the attention of other business partners and investors (Lee, 2016). With such importance, it is necessary for the law to protect these ideas from being used by unauthorized individuals. To shield from this, trade secrets, patents, and copyrights are used to protect the ownership of intellectual property (Legal Information Institute).

The patent rights can be granted to these types of intellectual property as stated above. The patent right for an invention will last for a period of 15 years. Utility models or industrial design patents last for five years.

Intellectual property is critical to many companies in order to foster innovation and boosting their revenues. Many industries rely on the protection of patents, trademarks and copyrights as they are valuable assets for companies’ success. By protecting intellectual properties, it ensures that the original owner reaps full benefits from his/her ideas, features, products and creations.