Justification of Intellectual Property Protection - Essay Example

?Justification of Intellectual Property Protection Introduction Intellectual property is any change of mind or innovation. This property, maybe a symbol or a logo, any unique name designated for a company, creative and artistic invention. Intellectual property is secluded or patent innovation. Certain brands use a specific trade mark and music companies copyright their sounds and videos patterns, professionals carry out methods formulas and technologies which are confined in official documents or economic values that are used commercially. Intellectual property is the intangible or insubstantial vague property on the other hand special private and personal property of any individual or a company is tangible is easily and clearly defined. IP is any form of expression, this includes images, symbols, logos, title, label, techniques, methods used in business industry or commerce; software, music rhythms literary. This personal effort is the innovation and creation of mind and displayed and manifested, it has physical existence and exclusive property rights. Exclusive property rights include copyrights, trademarks, patents industrial design rights and trade secrets, these rights are intellectual property and protect company’s different types of unrelated legal concepts. (Raysman, Pisacreta, & Kenneth 2008) The British statue of Anne 1710 and statue of monopolies 1623 are the two patent laws, copyrights that are nowadays used respectively, these laws were originated in the late 20th century and since then the word intellectual property started to be used. Centuries back there were many laws and principles passed to protect intellectual properties, but not before 19th century. Intellectual property is sometimes said to be real or private property as the legislators who support and encourages intellectual property inventors and creators do not have enough motivation and inducement until and unless they are not allowed to portray and summarize the full social value of their innovation. Intellectual property helps the creators as it help in brain storming and in finding news ideas and innovations which are beneficial and enhance the skills. Nowadays those legislators which are in the favor of intellectual property utilize the objective of absolute protection. This absolute protection thus deals intellectual property as real property. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) treaty and other global agreements are based on the fact that the intellectual property rights should be protected as it is essential to the economic growth. The following reasons are given in the handbook published by the World Intellectual Property Organization related to the intellectual property laws. "One is to give statutory expression to the moral and economic rights of creators in their creations and the rights of the public in access to those creations.” Inventions were not the reason to initiate the history of patent, but it was in fact the grants given by the Queen Elizabeth 1 (1558-1603) and other royal family members for the privileges aimed at creating monopoly. nearly 200 years after the end of the reign of Elizabeth 1 a patent now shows and represents a legal status to the rights which are obtained by the person inventing something which gives him the right to control that invention exclusively, control and restrict its production, sale or any restricting any other method that might make that invention available for others to use independently. (Mossoff, A, 2001, Vol. 52, p. 1255) The aim of this paper is to study the justifications or arguments that surround the formation of intellectual property law. The paper will open discussion with the aims of intellectual property law and then move to the justifications. The paper will also discuss the limitations to these justifications and in the end, conclude the discussion with a critical evaluation of the intellectual property law terms. Aims of Intellectual Property Law This section will deal with the protection of intellectual property incentives taken for those individual who violate and contravene laws and disrespects another’s right as his/her own right. Patent law, copyright law, contract law, tort law, trademark law are included in those laws which are breached and overlaps with other laws. Intellectual property greatly affects the economic growth and motivates people to innovate and create new ideas. As intellectual property deals with legislation which protect the copyrights so original work is preserved and when people know that their acknowledged work is protected they deduce new ideas. They are more likely to invest extra effort that leads the economy to prosperity. Copyrights, patents and trademarks are widely utilized in the world and these mechanisms protect the intellectual property. Copyrights protect the art work and expressions. Owners are given rights to change and reproduce their ideas and concepts but they present and demonstrate their work so as they can create its derivative work. Copyrights do not protect their ideas but the owners are given economic rights to benefit themselves but they do not permit others to copy their work without their grant and permission. Patents are utilized by companies these include the inventions and technologies or software from being sold or even utilized by others for a specific period of time. Three different types of patents are working in the United States. A mark or symbol TM written on many branded items must have been noticed. This TM marks helps the company’s as well as the consumers to distinguish between the companies from each others. It protects the marketing of the companies so that no other false company can copy and sell the same item of low quality, so it protects the identifying names of products and companies. A business once generated in the United States uses the symbol TM without filling their name with the government. (L. MacQueen, Hector. Waelde, Charlotte. T. Laurie, Graeme T. 2007) IP laws are aimed at encouraging improvements, innovations and creativity. It provides protection to others from trespassing and taking advantage of someone‘s hard work. IP rights provide the innovators economic incentives by giving him the right to take hold of the knowledge and innovation to which he had contributed. IP laws are further aimed at the economic advantage and benefit of the society, and provide a chance to the consumers to get profit from new innovative and better technology based products. The efficient and effective use of all the available resoures, in order to create an equilibrium between static and dynamic efficiency, is one of the goals of IP Rights. An innovator or creater of a product has the advantage of generating his monopoly for some time period. IP Rights promotes good and healthy competition between companies to invest their money and energy in developing new products and ultimately pushes them to create and innovate. Thus IP Rights have a positive impact on these companies and therefore these rights are help in the innovation of new products and advancement of the existing technology (Drexl 2008:7). Common laws and statute plays a vital role in intellectual property law. Common laws help to set up trade secrets and in order to give them legal protection, options are utilized which are provided by agreement and contract laws. Trademarks, patents and copyrights are initiated and presided over by statute on behalf of the original idea and concept. Work which is artistic and has creativity, like painting, music, books, photography etc, are provided protection by the copyrights. Businesses make use of the trade secrets, patents, trademarks, etc, because of their commercial aspects. The advancements and evolution of the digital media in the yester years have provided a bridge between the articulation of ideas and concepts and the conventional methods of media, like books and magazines. This evolution of digital media has severed the problem of intellectual property as now due to technology any piece of intellectual property can be utilized by anyone, anywhere in the world for his or her own benefit without giving due credit to its owner (Aplin & Davis 2009). Justifications of Intellectual Property Laws The justifications for intellectual property laws are not limited to one view point. Instead, the justification for enacting laws and protection methods varies with the types of intellectual properties available. Intellectual property has been regarded as a broader form of individual personality. It can be argued that the rights are rationalized with respect to merit and labor or the intellectual property rights can be argued with respect to the social progress and inducements for innovation. Although these arguments have their weaknesses, there are also some stronger points which can be justified by them. Copyrights and patents cannot be regarded as native and inherent, which the people have enjoyed. They are, however, just artificial methods of strong governments of various states for the benefit of their own political and social purposes. But they crash with the basic and fundamental rights which we declare as the property rights. There are many strong arguments against the justification of intellectual property rights. These justifications are considered as public and private justifications. If a person has bought something from a market, an appliance, a book, etc, he or she is can then be declared as the owner of that property as he has paid for it and has the complete authority to do whatever he pleases. He should have the right to throw it away, destroy it, give it to someone else, make its copies, modify it, or analyze it the way he like. But the intellectual property rights forbid him from doing so. No doubt that he owns that object as he has paid for it; even then he is being restricted to use it the way he wants to. This situation is similar to a scenario where a person buys a CD but he is restricted to only use it in a particular brand of CD-ROM drive, otherwise it would not be legal. Things get even more complicated with patents. We can consider an example of an engineer. Engineers are taught to design things which provide ease and solve the problems faced by humans. If an engineer decides to design something innovative in order to minimize a problem faced by people, he will sit and think and then design the best possible solution. But later he is sued and he finds out that someone has already come up with that idea and has patent it. The problem here is that no one refers to the patent database before using his imagination and creativity to solve his problems. One strong argument is that this should be made very clear that many minds exist in this world which can think and work simultaneously. Therefore it should come as no surprise to anyone that same ideas can generate in different minds. It cannot be justified that one of these persons gets a license and prevent all the other co-inventors from using that idea, just because he was the first one to patent it. But on the contrary it can be said that if no such thing like patent existed then there are many souls in this world which will take others’ hard work for granted. It must be understood that several designs and ideas may overlap in some contexts which is entirely possible as the human mind thinks in various contexts and on various levels in a similar manner. In that case, if two people have generated a similar idea, the first one to copyright the idea can eventually sue the second person for a stolen idea. However, in case when the second person has actually stolen the idea, it may have be extremely difficult to evaluate and prove that idea of the first person was stolen by the second person. This is a gray area for which intellectual property rights may not be able to distinguish as much in this regard. (Brad, Sherman; Lionel Bently. 1999) According to the economic theory if a sanction is placed on the usage of an invention, it ultimately results in the creation and distribution of knowledge. Locke’s natural rights theory Intellectual Property says that a person has the ownership of what he creates. The trade secretes laws enforced in USA are based on the Lockean model of IP. Another justification for IP is the individualized viewpoint and according to this theory the identification of every work done by an author will be in harmony to him. The author is exclusively accountable for his work and his work will be interpreted as an addition of the creator’s individuality and it will not harm anyone if that work is completely restricted for public use. Hence a creator of any work has the exclusive rights to control his creation (Lindberg 2008:16). Conclusion From the entire discussion, it is concluded that people should have the authority to use their brains, their thoughts and creativity in order to solve their problems, make products and ultimately sell it, not leashed by some monopolies which work for their own benefits. This should be the real meaning of intellectual property rights. Information is a communal creation. Restricting its access is unjust and gives an improper benefit to the writers and originators. In that respect, when information is restricted, people have to work on limited sources and limited knowledge which may be dangerous. Societies give knowledge the people and individuals which are then utilized by them to generate logical works of all sorts. Thus it can be said that knowledge, which is a social product, forms the basis of all sorts of intellectual work. And based on this justification it can be said that individuals should not have the authority to own the work that has actually generated from a social source, knowledge. When understood in this context, any intellectual property work that has been created through social knowledge should not be isolated and given a copyright as it also means that rights of the society are being impinged upon. On the other hand, it also means that one individual has had the capacity to introduce and write something that has added to the body of knowledge of the society, but which has not been copied from the societal body of knowledge. In that case, copyrighting the work in favor of that individual may be considered sensible. Allowing this is similar to giving ownership to the person who puts the last brink in a public beneficial project, like a dam. Dams are build for social benefit of the people, thus it is a social product. And the efforts done by the people making it is the knowledge, on the basis on which every intellectual work is done. Contrary to that, individual knowledge and intelligence has come into play to formulate a work of intelligence that has been generated through the societal body of knowledge and which has never been produced before. In that context, it may be considered that copyrighting in the favor of the individual would be correct and sensible in some respects as well (Ross & Terence 2000). The moral and ethical points raised by problems related to intellectual property are the ones that are more relevant. Intellectual property rights may not be considered as critical when it comes to simpler items like works of fiction. However, when it comes to drugs, formulas and chemical compounds that are to be protected by patent laws. Life saving drugs, which are the most socially valuable goods, and genetically customized seeds and formulae are when patent and given protection under the intellectual property laws, creates a problem which is not in the favor of mankind. Since such ideas are protected by copyright laws, organizations try and capitalize on their patents and copyrights to their maximum potential. The pharmaceutical companies producing such medicines and making them their own intellectual property restricts others to use that particular formula. This enables them to monopoly the market. They restrict other companies to manufacture their product without spending an extra amount on research and development of that product. Companies can charge higher than normal cost of production to overcome the additional cost of research and development of that medicine, as allowed by the intellectual property rights. These organizations may try and collect as much revenue as possible in order to earn against the costs of the patent before it expires. In that case, the suffering party turns out to be patients who have to pay extra in order to purchase a life saving drug. On the other hand, organizations who have spent years to perfect the formula for a new drug and have come up with a solution for an ailment which was not present before, it is fair on them that they are allowed to charge extra and are allowed a patent so that the drug is not copied. Despite that, monopolizing on the profits is an issue that has to be looked into as organizations may go overboard on charging prices in order to cover their research and development costs while trying to earn some revenue from the new medicine or drug they are selling. Such ethical concerns get raised whenever a new drug is introduced in the market specially when it pertains to life threatening diseases or for ailments for which a drug has not been made before. (Jorn Sonderholm, 2010: 1108-9) References Aplin, T & Davis, J 2009, “Intellectual Property Law: Text, Cases, and Materials.” Brad, S & Lionel, B 1999, “The making of modern intellectual property law: the British experience, 1760-1911”, Cambridge University Press. pp. 207. MacQueen, H, Waelde, CTL & Graeme, T 2007, “Contemporary Intellectual Property Law and Policy”. Mossoff, A 2001, “Rethinking the Development of Patents: An Intellectual History, 1550- 1800”, Hastings Law Journal, Vol. 52, p. 1255. Ross, PT 2000, “Intellectual property law: damages and remedies”, Raysman, RA, Pisacreta, EA & Adler, K 2008, “Intellectual Property Licensing: Forms and Analysis”, Law Journal Press. Schroeder, D & Singer, P 2009, “Prudential Reasons for IPR Reform”, University of Melbourne. Sonderholm, J 2010, Ethical Issues Surrounding Intellectual Property Rights”, Philosophy Compass, Pp. 1108-9. Texas Law Review 2004-2005 Property, Intellectual Property, and Free Riding .2012. Available at: . [Accessed 05 February 2012] Read More