IP Rights: Essential Aspects & Remedies - Essay Sample

Introduction

Intellectual property is the "unique, value-adding creations of the human intellect that results from human ingenuity, creativity, and inventiveness" (Kalanje, 2020, p. 2).

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The various Intellectual Property (IP) rights available through the stages of a business are examined. An analysis ensues regarding the essential aspects of the rights, along with potential deficiencies and possible remedies. The principal IP rights in business, patents and trade secrets, trademarks and copyrights, and design rights (Sullivan & Harrison, 2008).

Patents and Trade secrets

A patent is a temporary business rights protection grant issued by the authorities to protect an originators invention. It has a term of fourteen to twenty years and allows exclusive rights of ownership to the holder of the invention. It is as such an essentially defensive strategy for new entrepreneurs who wish to guard their invention against expression by other competition (Jorda, 2009). It is, however, essential to note a patent can only protect the expression of an idea and not the idea itself. The patenting laws do not identify concepts that are not pushed past the invention stage, but that are instead just ideas in the mind of the inventor (Sorensen & Herzog, 2020). Such idea expression is an essential part of the start of a new business venture or a new product line (Jorda, 2009). There are two major types of patents that can work to protect an invention. These types of patents may either be design or utility patent.

Design Patent

This patent type protects the ornamental appearance of an invention (Chen & Chen, 2007). The design patent outline is not very sophisticated, but it retains the novelty and originality of the product or service.

Utility Patent

This is the patent of choice for people wishing to protect the function and method behind the innovation (Goel & Saunoris, 2019). The protection provided by the utility patent is more vital and broader than the product design patent.

Patents are ways, in which, people with an original idea may protect themselves from the competition who may want to hijack such inventions. Despite the varying levels of rights protection, the patents IP rights allow for safety and freedom to launch a product or safely proceed to the terminal stages of a project management process (Chen & Chen, 2007; Goel & Saunoris, 2019).

Trade secrets are the other rights to which a business is entitled. Every company or individual innovator is entitled to the secrets of their innovations or other internal undertakings. Any organization that violates these rights to a companys secrecy may be sued in a court of law (Goel & Saunoris, 2019). Valuable trade secret rights can help the inventor increase their bargaining power when trying to combine into a joint venture with another company with a strong trademark.

Trademarks and Copyrights

Trademarks are an essential part of the actual business process. The trademark for a business helps in the commercialization of the products and services. A companys trademark will serve to separate it from the competition. It will allow the owners to own the right to trade under the brand registered to the company while separating the brand from the products themselves (Britton, 2018). The trademark symbols/labels/words or designs are thereby added to the product labeling for the product or service. Businesses must be aware of the extent of trademark rules and their eligibility to use a specific trademark (Business News Daily, 2018).

Copyright laws, on the other hand, aim to protect the content creators from replication of their work without permission (Rooksby & Hayter, 2019). It is mostly existing in artistic and literary works and may change with changing contexts. By producing the artistic or literary works, the owners are exclusively credited with the copyright ownerships. Any attempt to use or replicate the product must be subject to consent from the owners. These copyrights remain operational until after 70 years from the death of the owners (World Intellectual Property Organization, 2020).

Design Rights

These rights protect an individual or a company from having their products visual appearance duplicated by other companies or individuals (Intellectual Property Office, 2013). By registering for design rights, the individual or company aims to protect the way their product looks. Due to probable similarity of designs, IP consultant's advice against acquiring rights for the design of a product that naturally resembles other products (RocketLawyer, 2020). Such design rights can, furthermore, only be awarded to products that are novel and of specific character (Intellectual Property Office, 2013). Besides these registered design rights, policy and practice in IP may also allow for unregistered design right. The unregistered design rights protect any novel designs of individuals unique creation provided they arise automatically upon the creation of the product (Rocke, 2020).

Intellectual Property Rights Strategies in Business

Companies and individual businesses have different levels of expectations. The strategies are designed in a pyramid, which depends on the level of need of the business. These strategies include defense, cost and profit, integrated and visionary strategic levels. These strategies in Business IP rights are discussed next.

Defense Strategies

At the lowest level in the pyramid is the defensive strategies. These strategies in IP allow for the survival of the organization. The organization is aiming to protect its innovation from other businesses and avoid infringement (Sullivan & Harrison, 2008). With these expectations, they employ different strategies to view the business' need for various IPs.

Cost and Profit

The next IP strategies involve cost and profit management. After the company is safe from intrusive competition, it is now able to institute strategies that may allow them to minimize costs and maximize profits from their IP. These two stages can allow the firm to support its business activity and, in the process, use the IP as an asset to the business. The last two IP strategies involve more sophisticated strategic dealings. (Sullivan & Harrison, 2008).

Integrated Level

In this strategic level, the company is already able to employ the two basic IP levels in several of its activities. The company thereby attempts to extend and integrate IP to various activities in the business (Voortmans & Iturrailde, 2014). Integrated strategy in IP is interdisciplinary and wider in scope compared to the first two strategies.

Finally, the Visionary strategic level is characterized by higher levels of sophistication of the company and a key role in the Industry. Managers working in this highest level of IP aim to use IP to create value not only in their company but to impact the entire Industry they exist within (Sullivan & Harrison, 2008). Such companies usually occupy positions of immense influence in the Industry.

The business can now use their strength in the market and their awareness of the lower strategic levels to integrate their IP for a range of roles. Additionally, the business can determine an industry-wide vision and create more value in their operational space (Voortmans & Iturrailde, 2014).

Potential Pitfalls of Intellectual Property

Intellectual Property rights have brought order to the business world; there still exist certain issues that make the rights a little more complicated to the ordinary business owners. As Kalanje (2020) quotes, "while IP systems help to encourage creative intellectual endeavor in the public interest, some observers believe that, in practice, the IP system hinders competition to the extent that it is often seen to be playing a negative role in innovation" (p. 1).

The most common issue with IP protection is piracy (Radin & Toraman, 2020). While most global agencies have worked to preserve the ownership rights of property and businesses, various loopholes still exist in the legislations of various countries. It is observed, for instance, while some countries have strict copyright and other IP protection laws, other countries do not have such a strict stance. The tension between developed and developing countries cannot be masked anymore. The general belief some countries do not follow the IP agreements to the letter continues to breed mistrust among international businesses. As IP rights can only be imposed based on consensus with national governments, the non-cooperation of some geopolitical zones creates an impassable red tape (Chen & Chen, 2007; Evenson, 1993)

Another major issue with IP and the protection of the rights is their high costs and complexities. While large firms are ready with the capacity to engage in more integrated forms of IP, the Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) get scared away from the bureaucratic procedures involved. As a result of the high costs of rights protections like patenting, smaller firms are opting for less demanding defense approaches. "A study on patenting activity in Australia indicates that 44% of the firms used patents while 74% used trade secrets" (Kalanje, 2020, p. 5). A lack of such IP rights due to system complexity continues to push SMEs and low capital innovators into vulnerabilities and susceptibility to exploitation (Kalanje, 2020; Britton, 2018).

Small business owners and individual inventors with disruptive and incremental change propositions always lack bargaining powers when looking to source for investment (WIPO, 2020). The mistrust for such IP rights as patents leaves small business holders with no right to claim ownership of an invention in case the opposing businesses get their hands on the innovations (Kalanje, 2020). Nevertheless, it is essential that the SMEs protect themselves and their business information from external predation (WIPO, 2020). These small businesses often possess some valuable and innovative information and tactics that may be of use to the more established firms. IPs may thereby be essential business and competitive strategies against fellow SMEs as well as more established companies (Radin & Toraman, 2020).

Conclusion

In conclusion, the body section of this analysis discussed the various categories of Intellectual property rights. also, an analyze is given of the strategies that companies can adopt as they transition from the new project towards market dominance. The discussion revolved around the four principal IP rights in business, including; patents, trade secrets, copyrights, and trademarks. The positions and importance of these various property rights in the invention and innovation dynamics were identified. Next, the analysis focused on the various levels in which companies may exist when it comes to IP strategies. The various relevant strategies for different levels are also discussed. Finally, in this section, a discussion of the variety of challenges that may be posed by the adoption of IPs will be carried. The haziness around the full impact of these IP laws and their misuse by dominant market forces form the significant causes of concern for Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and individual inventors will be discussed as well.

The next part of this paper will attempt to make some general conclusions regarding the discussion that ensued from the first two parts. As such, this conclusion shall summarize the discussion around IPs and restate our hypothesis. There is a brief discussion on the level of success this analysis had in improving our understan...