Some people reject the term 'intellectual property', which is of relatively recent origin, and substitute the term '[government-granted monopoly]?'. |
Many people reject the term 'intellectual property', which is of relatively recent origin, and substitute the term '[government-granted monopoly]?'. |
While it is true that copyright and patents have something in common with more traditional forms of property, some people argue that this commonality is insufficient to justify the use of the term 'property'. |
While it is true that copyright and patents have something in common with more traditional forms of property, many people argue that this commonality is insufficient to justify the use of the term 'property'. |
The most common forms of intellectual property are copyright, patent, trademark, and trade secret. There are also more specialized varieties of intellectual property, such as [circuit design rights]?, [plant breeder rights]? and [plant variety rights]?. |
The most common forms of 'intellectual property' are copyright, patent, trademark and service mark, and trade secret. There are also more specialized varieties of intellectual property, such as [circuit design rights]?, [plant breeder rights]? and [plant variety rights]?. |
Trademarks |
Trademarks and Service Marks |
A service mark is a word, phrase, logo, symbol, color, sound, or smell used by a business to identify a service and distinguish it from those of its competitors. If the business uses the name or logo to identify a product, such as a camera, it is called a trademark. In practice, the legal protections for trademarks and service marks are identical. |
Many people reject the term 'intellectual property', which is of relatively recent origin, and substitute the term '[government-granted monopoly]?'. Copyrights and patents are a monopoly given government sanction for a limited period of time; thus people did not originally consider them property. While it is true that copyright and patents have something in common with more traditional forms of property, many people argue that this commonality is insufficient to justify the use of the term 'property'.
The most common forms of 'intellectual property' are copyright, patent, trademark and service mark, and trade secret. There are also more specialized varieties of intellectual property, such as [circuit design rights]?, [plant breeder rights]? and [plant variety rights]?.
A service mark is a word, phrase, logo, symbol, color, sound, or smell used by a business to identify a service and distinguish it from those of its competitors. If the business uses the name or logo to identify a product, such as a camera, it is called a trademark. In practice, the legal protections for trademarks and service marks are identical.
The general trend in intellectual property law has been to increase the term of the government-granted monopoly and to treat corporations as the legitimate "authors" and owners of works. The concept of [work for hire]? has had the effect of treating a corporation or business owner as the legal author of all works created by people while employed. Another trend is to increase the number and type of what is claimed as intellectual property. This has resulted in increasingly broad patents and trademarks: for instance, Microsoft attempting the trademark the phrase, "Where do you want to go today?". The granting of patents for life forms, software algorithms and "business models" stretches the initial concept of giving the inventor a limited monopoly of the use if his invention. Some argue that these expansions harm an essential "bargain" driven between public and copyright holders: as most "new" ideas borrow from other ideas, it is thought that too many intellectual property laws will lead to a reduction the overall creative output of a society. The expansion of monopolies has also led to the emergence of organizations whose business model is to frivolously sue other companies.
The electronic age has seen an increase in the attempt to use software based [digital rights management]? tools to restrict the copying and use of digitally based works. This can have the effect of limiting fair use provisions of copyright law and even make the [first sale doctrine] moot. This would allow, in essence the creation of a book which would disintegrate after one reading. As individuals have proven adept at circumventing such measures in the past, many copyright holders have also successfully lobbied for laws such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which uses criminal law to prevent any circumvention of software used to enforce digital rights management systems.
Related entries: property, real property, personal property, fair use.
Types of intellectual property: copyright, patent, [trade dress]?, trademark, trade secret.