Paper on Intellectual Property Rights: Exclusive Possession of Creative Thought & Ideas

Introduction

Intellectual Property refers to the bundle of rights that arise from a person's creative thought or idea (Peterson, 2020). It is contradistinguished from tangible property in that tangible property consists of physical or rather tangible property such as personal property, land, and chattels. At the core of this distinction is the exclusive nature of both forms of properties (Peterson, 2020). While the right of exclusive possession is at the center of the bundle of rights that seek to protect tangible property, intellectual property establishes a wide platform that encourages inventions that benefit the public and the inventors through compensation for their works. This has thus encouraged the establishment of forms of intellectual property rights that seek to protect them.

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What are the four forms of Intellectual Property?

There are four forms of intellectual property: copyright, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets (Peterson, 2020). A patent is used to protect the intellectual property associated with the design or the process of making a product. This, the patent owner acquires an exclusive right to stop others from exploiting it. On the other hand, a trademark provides an identity for a product by protecting words, names, symbols, smells, or color schemes. This helps distinguish products from copyrights. A copyright protects the expression of an idea. Evidentially, those mentioned above can only be enforced per the laws of the land that have legal backing from the constitution

What is the constitutional authorization for the establishment of patent rights and copyrights?

The intellectual property clause of the Constitution confers power to Congress to regulate patents. Under this clause, a patent clause and copyright clause permit both copyrights and patents. The grant of this power to Congress aims at promoting the progress of the relevant fields of innovation. This resonates with the spirit of the constitution that goes further to integrate trademark rights into the land laws.

What is the Constitutional authorization for the establishment of trademark rights?

The constitutional underpinning of trademarks lies within the commerce clause. As such, the trademarks are protected under both the federal registration system and the state law. This consequently allows states to incorporate statutory law and the common law of ‘unfair competition’ when registering trademarks. Additionally, the laws regulating trademarks tend to vary between States, thus allowing for each jurisdiction to incorporate the systems mentioned above that inadvertently is important in the economy, especially in businesses.

Why are intellectual property rights particularly important in the media business?

Intellectual property rights such as copyrights play a central role in protecting intellectual property rights, especially through the De Minimis rule application. This rule is applied as a defense in court for copyright infringement (Parthasarathy, 2018). It works to the effect that it rejects the massive volume of petty copyright infringement in the media daily. Therefore, courts tend to logically conclude that the amount of reproduction is de Minimis, thus not requiring a suit against copyright infringement.

What is the difference between a property right and a personal right?

The distinction between property rights and personal rights is based on the relationship that is established within them (Peterson, 2020). Property rights establish legal ownership of resources, thus giving the owner the ability to do with the property whatever they choose. On the other hand, personal rights establish a personal relationship in that those rights are enforceable against a person.

What happens to the copyrights in a musical work when the composer dies?

Copyright protection covers the musical work of the composer during the lifetime of the musician. However, in the case of death, the protection ceases to exist after seventy years from the time of death of the musician (Ramsey, 2019.) In such a case, the music ends up in the public domain. It is worth noting that the number of years varies depending on the jurisdiction since some tend to use figures such as 95 and 120 years to compute the expiry period.

What happens to the privacy rights of an individual when an individual dies?

An individual's privacy rights when an individual dies are transferred to a family member or an executor. The various acts that underline the right to privacy regardless of the death of a person assert the need to avoid conflict and harm that may arise with releasing the information. Court precedents that have dealt with the right to privacy are discretional and are guided by the necessity at hand. Therefore, although some statutes provide for transparency, the need to protect privacy outweighs, allowing a dead person's data to be released due to the need for transparency.

What is the key factor in the difference between law and ethics? Why is it so important?

The major difference between law and ethics is punishment, which is an underpinning in law. The necessity of punishment for breaking the law highlights the core elements that the governing body seeks to achieve: create order and justice. Ethics being a moral philosophy, does not entail punishments since it is guided by social and religious beliefs that can only go as far as condemning those who defy the moral principles. This ultimately outlines the role of punishment in law.

List and explain the two types of jurisdiction that a court must have to have the power to decide any given case.

A court ought to satisfy the need for personal and subject matter jurisdiction before deciding any case. A court has personal jurisdiction over a matter if the court is satisfied that the matter beforehand occurred within that state. Therefore, the person setting the ball in motion needs to prove that the business that led to the proceedings has close connections to the state in which that court is located. Subject matter jurisdiction involves choosing between state and federal courts. Therefore, there needs to be a proper understanding of where a certain matter lies to institute a legal proceeding in either court.

References

Parthasarathy, R. (2018). Protecting Intellectual Property in Media and Entertainment. I am media. Retrieved from https://www.iam-media.com/copyright/protecting-intellectual-property-media-and-entertainment

Ramsey, C. (2019). Music Law 101: How Long Does Copyright Protection Last? JD SUPRA. Retrieved from https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/music-law-101-how-long-does-copyright-57301/

Peterson, T.L. (2020). How Intellectual Property Works. HowStuffWorks. Retrieved from https://money.howstuffworks.com/intellectual-property.htm