Saq 11: Intellectual Property Rights

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Intellectual property rights are the rights given to persons over the creations of their minds. They usually give the creator an exclusive right over the use of his/her creation for a certain period of time. In law, particularly in common law jurisdictions, intellectual property is a form of legal entitlement which allows its holder to control the use of certain intangible ideas and expressions. The term intellectual property reflects the idea that once established, such entitlements are generally treated by courts, especially in common law jurisdictions, as if they were tangible property. The most common forms of intellectual property include patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets.

Common types of Intellectual Property

•A copyright is a form of intellectual property that grants its holder the sole legal right to copy their works of original expression, such as a literary work, movie, musical work or sound recording, painting, computer program, or industrial design, for a defined period of time. Typically, works must meet minimal standards of originality in order to qualify for a copyright, and the copyright expires after a set period of time.

Rights of copyright holder

A copyright holder typically has exclusive rights:
•to make and sell copies of the work (including, typically, electronic copies)
•to import or export the work
•to make derivative works
•to publicly perform/display the work
•to sell or assign these rights to others

•Patents give the holder an exclusive right to prevent third parties from commercially exploiting an invention for a certain period, typically 20 years from the filing date of a patent application. The term "patent" originates from the Latin word patere which means to lay open (to public inspection) and the term letters patent, which originally denoted royal decrees granting exclusive rights to certain individuals or businesses.

•Trademarks are distinctive names, phrases or marks used to identify products to consumers. Trademarks, which are almost always only enforceable against competitors in the same product market, and only against certain limited commercial uses.

A trademark (Commonwealth English: trade mark)[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark#fn_styling) is conventionally a distinctive sign of some kind, whether that sign comprises a name, word, phrase, logo, symbol, design, picture, styling or a combination of one or more of these elements. A trademark is used by a business to identify itself and its products or services to consumers, and to set itself and its products or services apart from other businesses. A trademark is a type of intellectual property, and in particular, a type of industrial property.

•Case of Whelan vs. Jaslow

The decision of the court is right and it must be in favor of Jaslow, although Ms. Whelan used different programming language. In this situation Ms. Whelan has a motive to infringe and to copy the structure, sequence and organization of Jaslow because she spend too much time to study Jaslow Dental Lab program for modification, which makes her action unethical. There’s no originality. It’s confusing why it’s the same and as far as I know, different companies have different programs too. I doubt that both companies have the same idea regarding the design, structure, sequence and organization of the program. Infact, my question is that what is her reason why she study it? For further review or to gain personal gratification. I know Ms. Whelan has a good intention, to do the best that she could than her competitors. That’s why she study and made a new version of that program, and use it for new innovation, to be more advance than Jaslow Dental Lab, but her action is unethical because it infringe ones intellectual property.

•Case of Computer Associates vs. Altai

Actually I don’t believe the court decision in favor of Altai. Since the ex-programmer copied 30% of the code similar to the program of Computer Associates, still there is an infringement of intellectual property here. Who knows, maybe Altai give the program of the Computer associates to the ex-programmer to study it and make some modification, improved it and do the best. And who knows, the ex-programmer found out that there are too many loop holes in the program of Computer associates that’s why he/she revised it. That’s the first version of Altai program. Altai know that they will violate intellectual property in that particular time because as a strategy they wrote a second version of that program using programmers not familiar with computer associates program. That’s a good strategy, to fool the court that there is no infringement done. I think they won in this battle. Program must have originality. If I’m not mistaken it is there weapon to cover up what they did in the 1st version of their program, that’s why they wrote a second version of it. I’m not in favor of the court decision.

•Case of Apple vs. Microsoft

I am really confused about Copyright. I think there is no clear procedures, guidelines or basis on how to judge this particular cases in terms of graphical user interface. Since anybody can do the same graphical design I agreed with the court. I agreed with Bryan Ceniza in his car example. Of course all the car and jeep are the same. The maker of that car or jeep cannot be sued by another maker, that he/she infringe the design of it because all cars are the same but they have different accessories and others. I think originality in the case of graphical user interface (GUI) is not important.

•Case of Lotus vs. Paperback Software, Mosaic Software and Borland
There is no infringement of Intellectual Property in the case of Paperback Software, Mosaic Software and Borland for me, because there is no copying of codes. They are all original and authenticated. I just think that Lotus sued them because they want to gain money. They will use it for companies gratification.