When Is It Important For Innovators To Protect Their Intellectual Property - Essay Example

--------------------------- --------------------------- --------------------------- --------------------------- When Is It Important For Innovators To Protect Their Intellectual Property Compare And Contrast Three Different Approaches To The Protection Of Intellectual Property Introduction Innovation and inventions have been a common phenomenon in the society. Almost everyone, in one way or the other, has been responsible for creating new and useful works for self progress and overall development of the society. These creations constitute the intellectual property and the rules safeguarding them form the intellectual property rights. Any innovation or improvement calls for investment in terms of time, funds and labour. Protection of this property is necessary to ensure recognition of work and encourage economic, cultural and social progress. Protection for intellectual property leads to a healthy competition and enhances value and quality of products, thereby promoting economic growth by means of technological development and enriched cultural advancement. It opens fresh trade avenues and enhance standard of living. The governments have to act and ensure implementation of intellectual property system to sustain businesses in a theft free environment to enable steady growth (Sebban, Guy 2005). Intellectual Property: Definition and Classification Intellectual property is the name given to any new product or design or process and creative work of art or literature. Any invention or innovation involves dedicated effort on the part of an inventor who spends long hours in research and development. In addition, a significant amount of expenditure is also incurred towards development of new and innovative products or designs. If not protected and free copying is allowed, the inventor or innovator would soon get de-motivated, bringing stagnation to further development. Thus, protection of intellectual property assumes paramount importance. Intellectual property protection is essential to all businesses to exploit their new ideas and articles in the market and prevent piracy and theft by others. All art works also need to be credited for their creativity to enhance cultural growth (Sebban, Guy 2005). The protection methods can be broadly classified as 'formal or institutional' and 'strategic'. Formal protection methods include patent, trade secret, trade mark, and copyright, while strategic methods cover agreements of confidentiality, secrecy, lead and complexity (Iandiorio, Joseph S 1995). In the subsequent paragraphs, we would discuss, in detail, two formal methods, namely, patent and copyright, and one strategic method, namely, confidentiality agreement, bringing out differences, merits and demerits of each. Patent A 'patent' is a grant from a country's government that provides security or protection to a new invention or innovation by an individual or a group (in case of a company) for a limited period of time, extending up to a maximum of 20 years (Richer, David L 2000). The grant gives the inventor, the right to exclude others from making, using or selling the invention covered under the patent (Berreth SP 1996). The patents can be divided as 'utility' or 'design' patents. Utility patents are granted to primarily protect an invention. The invention refers to any of the following (Iandiorio, Joseph S 1995):- A new process, machine and composition of matter or A new improvement in a process or machine or New and useful utilization of old machines or devices or New combination of old and well-known parts of machines or processes. Utility patents may further be classified as chemical (related to compounds), electrical (covering all electrical components and circuits), and general or mechanical (including gears, shafts, and propellers etc for motor engines and machines). Award of utility patents require implementation of a new and useful idea followed by presentation in some physical form. Design patents are also awarded to new ideas, however, these cover only appearance, that is, ornamental aspect of the innovation or invention. Designer dresses, article shapes, automobile bodies etc are a few examples that can be patented for design. Design patents are relatively easier and cheaper to obtain when compared to utility patents. The patent describes the invention in detail, including operation, usage, and method of performing and scope of invention. The procedure of obtaining patent involves steps like application filing followed by examination for compliance along with comparing to old patents to determine the extent of similarity of the new patent. The patents possess the merits, like, being in force for a limited but definite term, prevents others from making, using or selling the product or process covered under the patent, extensive scope of the matter being protected and enhance healthy competition by forcing others to innovate rather than copy. As for the demerits, patents are expensive (to obtain as well as maintain), they don't give assurance, registration procedure is tedious and time consuming (1-2 years to patent), significant loss of vital information to competitors, delayed compensation for patent infringement and inability to protect certain proprietary (Berreth, SP 1996). Copyright Copyright is a proprietary right that protects works of literary, artistic, dramatic or musical nature. The owner of the right is the person who has created the work or a legal heir of the creator. There is no binding requirement of formally registering the work for copyright. The work assumes the right, once created and published. Copyright authorizes the owner to reproduce or develop an extension to the same work and allow public display or distribution of work. At large, it covers all types of writings - lingual or non-lingual. Books, journal articles, manuals, drawings, paintings, architectural designs, recorded videos and audios, motion pictures, databases and computer software are a few examples that can be covered under copyright. Copyright is an exclusive right to the owner that restricts others from either altering or distorting or modifying the original work. The right also authorizes the owner to claim damages, in case infringement of copyright comes to light. The right protects the mode of expression as well as the underlying idea or theme, that is, changing of expression without any change in the idea would also amount to infringement of the right. Copyright has a specific term, extending up to 50 years after the death of the creator. In case of corporate, the term is 75 years from the date of first publication or 100 years from the date of creation; whichever is less. The owner possesses the right to display, perform or copy the work and deny the same to others, for the duration of the term. The advantages of copyrights are long and definite term, easy and inexpensive to obtain and maintain, no formal registration, immediate availability on creation and fast settlement for breaches while disadvantages include limited scope of protection with no protection to concepts or independent creations (Berreth, SP 1996). Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDA) or Confidentiality Agreements These are the legal agreements between two or more parties that prohibit them from disseminating or sharing any information, like knowledge, ideas, project material, technical databases and plans etc, contacted while working together in a common environment or a company, thereby ensuring confidentiality of information (Borns, Robert J 2002). Such agreements are resorted to, when it is not feasible to protect information by other intellectual property rights. (Irish, Vivien 2001). Events like theft or loss of material and accidental revelations should be avoided through careful and diligent planning. The duration of non disclosure agreement extends from 2 to 5 years or as specified in the agreement provisions (Borns, Robert J 2002). More often than not, an NDA covers statistical research details, like reliability test results under different conditions, tolerance values, and survey details etc which are not included by the author or creator in the copyrighted or patented work. When such information is required to be shared or disclosed to another party, which may be a supplier or a prospective customer, NDA is entered into (Irish, Vivien 2001). NDA can be classified as 'one way disclosure' or 'mutual disclosure'. The former is used when valuable information is required to be disclosed to a party that asks for it to decide on purchase of a product or service, while the latter is implemented when mutual exchange of information is needed (Irish, Vivien 2001). The agreement document covers confidential information definition, security classification, recipient access control (list of recipient's employees who are authorized to access information), demonstrative disclosures, and list of what is not covered. It is important to note that the duration an NDA lasts is different from the period of confidentiality (Irish, Vivien 2001). The start dates are clearly mentioned in the document. The NDA term is generally 6 months or a year and accounts for the decision making time taken by the customer, while the confidentiality is maintained for a longer duration, generally between 2 to 5 years, extendable up to 10 years. At the end of the NDA term either all the copies are submitted back to the owner or a destruction certificate stating complete destruction of all the copies is forwarded. The disadvantage here is that the information retained by the human brain cannot be erased and pose threat to confidentiality of information. Conclusion The essay attempts to establish the need and importance of intellectual property protection to enhance economical growth, technological advancement and enrichment of diverse culture. The classification of intellectual property protection methods has been given with detailed description of patents, copyright and confidentiality agreements. A working intellectual property system is a managerial function and requires diligent effort to implement a tailor-made system towards protection of a company's or organisation's intellectual property, thereby enabling overall growth leading to progress and prosperity. Failure on such account may adversely affect the company, retarding its growth. References Berreth, SP 1996, 'Methods for protecting intellectual property', Northcon/96, pp. 419-424. Borns, Robert J 2002, 'The legal aspects of engineering education, entrepreneurship, and invention', 32nd ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, pp. 18-23. Iandiorio, Joseph S 1995, 'From start to finish: protecting ideas and inventions with intellectual property', Electro/95 International Professional Program Proceedings, pp. 141-149. Irish, Vivien 2001, 'How to read an NDA', Engineering Management Journal, pp. 111-114. Richer, David L 2000, 'Intellectual property protection: who needs it', Agricultural Biotechnology and the Poor, pp. 203-208. Sebban, Guy 2005, 'Intellectual property: source of innovation, creativity, growth and progress', International Chamber of Commerce. Read More