Intellectual property- Business Policies and Business Law Essay

Intellectual property- Business Policies and Business Law - Essay Example In some jurisdictions, copyright, patents, trademarks, trade secrets, and industrial design rights are also considered as common intellectual properties. This paper will discuss the business policies and needs regarding the creation and protection of intellectual property. Intellectual Property (IP) policies or laws As stated above, IP can be referred to an intangible form of property and it is entirely different from a personal property or real property. Knowledge and innovations have great roles to play in improving organizational performance. Nowadays, people recognize products in terms of brand names and hence companies give major focus on the promotion of their brand names. As Bagley and Dauchy (2011, p. 492) point out, individuals are given certain exclusive rights for the preservation of their intellectual property because governments and other legal bodies believe that the intellectual property rights would encourage the creators to make further innovations that may benefit t he society as whole. For instance, recently Samsung and LG jointly paid $964 million to Kodak in order to settle the intellectual property law infringement battle. Similarly, Kodak has also filed a suit against Apple’s iPhone and RIM’s Blackberry for the breach of patent laws. The extent of protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights largely varies from country to country. ... Both common law and statute play a significant role in the IP law relating to the creation and protection of intellectual property. Trade secrets are established on the strength of common law. In order to protect those trade secrets, both contract law and tort law provides certain legal options. Since trademarks, patents, and copyrights are under private ownership for a restricted period of time, specific statues are concerned with the creation and serving of such concepts. Similarly, artistic works such as books, photographs, paintings, and movies are subjected to copyright law. It is observed that businesses most often take advantages of trademark and patent laws since they are the primary beneficiaries of the protected property’s commercial value. US Constitution and Congressional legislature is the major institution responsible for the governance of copyrights and patents whereas state and federal laws are concerned with dealing with trademarks and unfair competition dispu tes. Since patent law is a very complicated and broad one, several adjustments are made to patent law according the nature of breach of contract. Most areas of the international IP law are governed by the federal as well as international treaty laws. The significance of protecting intellectual property was firstly expressed in the â€Å"Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property in 1883 and the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works in 1886† (Understanding copyright and related rights). Industrial property and copyright are the two broad classifications under the concept intellectual property. Industrial property is