Understanding Intellectual Property

GWD is a successful business that has been working as a brick-and-mortar company for several years. GWD's president has decided that it is time for GWD to move into the e-business world by e-enabling his company. In preparation for e-enabling our company, we have been asked to prepare for a meeting with our attorney. To prepare for this meeting, GWD's president would like us to put together our understanding of key e-business issues along with questions that need clarifying.

To complete this assignment from our president, this paper will discuss various types of intellectual property that is applicable to e-business, it will assess reasons for acquiring and protecting intellectual property in regards to e-business, and the nature and impact of both local and global laws and regulations. Per our instructions, we will describe our understanding of the issues and form questions that need answered or clarified by our attorney.

Types of Intellectual Property Applicable to e-business

Intellectual property is defined by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) as: "creations of the mind: inventions, literary and artistic works, and symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce. (WIPO, 2004). They further define intellectual property into two categories: industrial property and copyright. Industrial property includes items such as patents, industrial designs, and trademarks. Copyrights include items such as novels, poems, paintings, plays, etc. (WIPO, 2004). A general rule of thumb is that ideas and thoughts are copyrightable while processes and products are patentable.

Several types of intellectual property are applicable to e-business. They are patents, trademarks, and copyrights. Patents are "exclusive right granted for an invention, which is a product or a process that provides a new way of doing something, or offers a new technical solution to a problem." (WIPO, 2004). A patent allows the inventor sole commercial use of the invention for a set period of time. After that time, others are allowed to start commercially benefiting from this invention. Trademarks are "a distinctive sign which identifies certain goods or services as those produced or provided by a specific person or enterprise." (WIPO, 2004). Trademarks are the common symbols used to identify a product or company, i.e. the Nike swoosh. Copyrights are "rights given to creators for their literary and artistic works" (WIPO, 2004). Copyrights in the business world can include technical drawings, computer programs, graphics, and more.

All of these types of intellectual property can be found in business and can be found in companies that have e-enabled themselves. It is important for a company to realize that when they move to e-business, they still have the protections on these items.

It is also important that our company knows what types of intellectual property we have and what we intend to use in the e-business world.

World Intellectual Property Organization

WIPO was referred to in the above descriptions of types of intellectual property. It is important to briefly discuss what WIPO is and what its purposes are. According to its website, WIPO is based in Geneva, Switzerland and is a specialized agency of the United Nations. There are approximately 180 nations that are members of the WIPO. WIPO is in charge of administering 23 international treaties that have to do with Intellectual property protection. There focus is on protecting the rights of intellectual property holders in order to ensure the advancement of technology, science, and the arts. By working across the globe to protect these rights, they guarantee that a persons' or company's efforts to move forward will be rewarded. (WIPO, 2004).

Assess reasons for acquiring and Protecting Intellectual property

According to Amazon.com founder, Jeff Bezos "the reason we have a patent system in this country is to encourage people to take these kinds of risks and make these kinds of investments for customers," (Arent, 1999). Bezos was referring to a patent that Amazon holds for 1-click shopping. He was illustrating the reasons for the patent by pointing out that their competitor, Barnes and Nobles, copied the idea of 1-click shopping from them in order to increase their market share. Amazon filed a lawsuit against Barnes and Noble to prevent them from using the 1-click shopping idea. (Arent, 1999).

From this example, it can be seen why acquiring and protecting GWD's intellectual property in the form of patents is important. It will allow them to stay ahead of their competitors and maintain their incentives for creating new business processes and techniques. Patents also are a possible source of revenue as they give sole commercial ownership of the process to the inventors for a period of usually 20 years. GWD can, at any time, license these patents to other intested parties to generate revenue and increase the value the of the patents.

Trademarks are also important items to protect. From the defintion above, trademarks are the symbols used to identify a company or product in the market. The Nike Swoosh is a perfect example. Most people will know that they are buying a pair of Nike shoes by the swoosh located on the shoe. If another company started to produce shoes with a swoosh on them and they were of lower quality, this could severely taint Nike's reputation by the association to the swoosh symbol. Instead Nike has the Trademark rights to the swoosh and other companies are not allowed to use it. This concept is the same in the e-business world.

When discussing trademarks, it is important to consider domain names as well. A domain name can be considered a trademark for a company if it is unique identifier of the company. An exampel would be www.mcdonalds.com. This domain name is the common name of McDonald's corporation, the owners of the McDonald's restaurants. GWD should aquire a domain name as unique to itself as possible, while making sure to not infringe on another company's unique name. While there might be several companies in the United States that go by the initials GWD, there is probably only one company called Gloer Window Designs. If someone were to register the domain name www.gloerwindowdesigns.com, they would potentially be committing an act referred to as cybersquatting. Cybersquatting is: "a derogatory term used to describe the practice of registering and claiming rights over internet domain names which are, arguably, not for the taking. The cybersquatter then offers the domain to the rightful owner at an inflated price, an act which some deem to be extortion (wikipedia.com, 2004). ICANN has a resolution policy for resolving domain name conflicts, but the United States has also passed a law (the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) of 1999) that extends protections under the trademark laws to specifically protect against this form of trademark infringement (wikipedia.com, 2004).

Copyrights are the rights granted to a person or entity for creative works. In the business environment, these works can include technical drawings, software programs, custom graphics, news and other literary works, etc. According to WIPO, "protection is formality-free in countries party to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (the Berne Convention), which means that protection does not depend on compliance with any formalities such as registration or deposit of copies" (WIPO, 2004). You do not have to register your works or even mark them as such. However, because the Internet is such an open and available media, it is a good idea to at least mark items in your e-business world as copyrighted. This can help to avoid any misconceptions that because you have an item in the e-world, it is free for the taking.

Questions to be asked and answered:

1) What are the risks and costs of filing for patents? Who has to determine if prior art applies to the idea or process?

2) What are the advantages of registering our copyrights? Is there added protections and are they worth the cost?

3) What are some jurisdictional issues that might arise if I find someone infringing on my patent or copyright?

4) What other types of intellectual property are important in the e-business world? What have we overlooked that we should be paying attention to?

5) What recourse do we have for disputes with persons outside the sphere of international treaties and WIPO?

6)

Conclusion

Intellectual property is an important part of any business's portfolio that is offered protection from infringement. This protection comes first from laws within the United States and second from international treaties that are managed by the World Intellectual Property Organization. There are three primary types of intellectual property that are important when moving to an e-business. These three types are: copyrights, trademarks, and patents. Patents generally cover business process and/or products that are created. Trademarks generally cover the symbols used to commonly define a company or product line as in the Nike Swoosh symbol. Copyrights apply to ideas and thoughts that are recorded in the form of art, plays, music, software products, technical drawings, and more. All three of these types of intellectual property are used in e-business and in the brick-and-mortar world. It is just as important to protect these assets online as it is the brick-and-mortar world, if not more important.

A basic understanding of all of these concepts has been outlined in this paper. In addition, questions have been formed to pose to our attorneys when we meet. The answers to these questions will help solidify what GWD needs to do and know in order to successfully move into the e-business world.

References:

Arent, L. (1999). Amazon, b&n's mutual hissy fit. Wired News, Retrieved Oct 28, 2004, from http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,32068,00.html.

(n.d.). retrieved Oct 28, 2004, from WIPO Web site: www.wipo.int.

(n.d.). retrieved Oct 28, 2004, from CyberSquatting Web site: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyber_squatting.