E-Business 101, Part 5: Intellectual Property
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You don't need to be a lawyer to have some understanding of intellectual property law--but you do need to have some understanding of intellectual property law to have a thriving e-business. Myles Alderman discusses the legal ins and outs of the three kinds of intellectual property you'll encounter most: copyrights, trademarks, and patents.
Introduction
Most companies have more intellectual property assets than they, or their competitors realize. Increasingly, disputes regarding copyrights, trademarks, patented technology and domain names are appearing in courts and gathering media attention, especially those disputes involving one or more E-businesses. In some cases litigation is merely one of many tools used to maximize the value of a client's intellectual property. In other cases litigation is the result of uncertainty caused by either underdeveloped law or a misunderstanding of how the law applies to the facts.
To maximize the value of the intellectual property, we need to recognize the intellectual property owned by our clients and that to which our clients do not have a right. With this information we can explore licensing, marketing and standard setting avenues
Intellectual property law attempts to balance two appearantly conflicting interests. On one side, the law is designed to stimulate creativity and innovation by granting property rights as an incentive to authors and inventors. On the other side, the law attempts to protect the public interests by limiting the duration of an intellectual property right. Because of the rapid rate of change in the world of E-Business a World Wide Web site ("Web site") provides furtile ground for misunderstanding and disputes related to copyright, trademark or patent asset.
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