Why Does E-business Need IP - Book Report/Review Example

Article Title: Why Does E-business Need IP?SynopsisThe rapid strides in internet and allied technologies have given a big boost to e-business all around the globe. Intellectual property, within a field, sets apart a company from the rest. It has become extremely necessary for the firms to protect their intellectual properties in order to survive in marketplace. Patents and trademarks are two important mechanisms to protect valuable property of a firm. Trademarks protect logos, words and symbols of the company through which they are known among consumers; patents protect the basic inventions and discoveries that drive the companies' business.

Today, most businesses and firms maintain their online presence regardless of their nature of business. It could be either to deliver services or products or simply disseminating information for the benefit of consumers. Of late, business methods have been added as the class of patents because they decide about the ways commercial transactions are carried out; there are thousands of patents issued by the US Patent Office that speak about the methods of doing business. Authors argue that business methods patent is still a grey area where patent office has not adequate experience.

Currently, e-business has become crucial for most of the firms and so the several legal issues that emerge out of that. Legal IssuesDomains names, Meta-tags, and deep linking are the areas that have been causing major challenge to the genuine companies. Unscrupulous parties have been taking advantage of these areas in ever rising e-business opportunities. Authors argue that it has been even more necessary for the firms, in e-business, to get the trademark registered in order to keep spurious dealers at bay.

Managerial PerspectiveA domain name that resembles trademark may cause huge business losses to the firm that holds the ownership of that trademark. Domain names are like contact numbers that any internet user would make use of to access those companies' websites. Issue becomes crucial when someone registers domain name that matches with the trademark of some other company. Whatever may be the motive behind but it harms genuine firms invariably. Meta-tag is another area where large scale infringement may take place.

Search engines locate the web sites scanning meta-tags of the web pages and the fake people know all about this well and that is why they use competition trademark in their meta-tags. Similarly, deep linking done clandestinely may harm legitimate party immensely. Deep linking is a kind of hyperlink that takes visitor to a specific page of someone else’s website bypassing their home page and other pages. Such deep linking may cause huge tangible and intangible losses to the firm as someone else will reap the benefits of that by providing the needed information to the consumer.

Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACCPA) has been enacted by the US Congress to safeguard the trademark owners undoing the rights of a domain name owner if the domain name resembles to a trademark already registered with the US authorities. The typical example is Ford Motor Company of US having 'Ford' as their trademark and their domain name as ford.com. If someone else uses ‘Ford’ in their domain name, they may be prosecuted under ACCPA. So goes with the meta-tags and deep linking done without permission.

When two sites deep link with each other for mutual benefits, it is always advisable to do so after entering into an agreement to avoid any damages or claim in future.Thus, patents and trademarks, as hallmarks of intellectual property, are not less important in e-business; on the contrary, their importance has increased manifold when seen in the perspective of ever increasing e-business transactions in last couple of years. Reference Frommer, W. S.; Colletti, R.E.; Lieb, S. J. (2012). Why does e-business need IP?

Intellectual Asset Management. Retrieved August 9, 2012 from http://www.buildingipvalue.com/n_us/132_136.htm