Business Law - Intellectual Property Rights - Research Paper Example

The purpose of this paper is to analyze intellectual property rights in detail. The pioneer of intellectual property law was the patent law, passed through a congress majority in 1790 (UCSC, 2005). The 1970 intellectual property law had similar legal undertones as European patent law. The law stipulates that owner of a property has the exclusive right to access and use the said property (Petersen, 2011). Intellectual property laws, despite raising many controversies, help to nurture global economic growth.

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) estimates some companies have over 40% of their asset base as intellectual property in terms of copyrights, patents and trade secrets (UCSC, 2005). As a result, intellectual property law is gaining popularity in business today. Intellectual property laws is a set of limited rights given by law as patents, trademarks, industrial designs, for products and services and copyright for literary and artistic works. Intellectual property rights offer state protection to creative works, and allow the originators to profit from them for a stipulated period of time (Singer & Schroeder, 2010).

The laws also have a broader role of encouraging future innovators share their inventions with the world. Patents are the commonest of all intellectual property laws. Patents permit an individual to make, use, and sell a creation for 20 years. The government also provides protection and inimitability on the product (UCSC, 2005). However, the applicant must expose the details of what they seek to protect. A copyright, restricts the number of copies that can be prepared of a writing or work of art without approval, it lasts 70 years after a persons lifetime (Hooker, 2006).

A copyright is an stress-free form of safeguard of intellectual property. As soon as somebody creates an artistic work, copyright law comes into effect, and violators can undergo prosecution. The copyright law