Business and Intellectual Property Law

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Business and Intellectual Property Law

Forms of Intellectual Intangible Property Protection

An inventor's most precious asset is intellectual property. It comprises of discoveries, literary and artistic works, logos, emblems, and designs that are utilized in business, as well as the masterpieces of talented artists. Patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secret protection are the main types of intellectual property law (Moore, 2). Due to the similarities between intellectual property and real and personal property, related freely exercise for the treatment of intellectual property as an investment that can be purchased, traded, licensed, or transferred. Partners, developers, and artists can safeguard their work from illegal usage thanks to intellectual property regulations.

For the most part, copyrights are the only method of safeguarding for culturally significant works of song, movies, literature, poetry, architecture, and other media. The exclusive abilities to duplicate, create infringing copy, publish copies, perform, or exhibit a work protected by copyright belong to its creator (Moore, 2). These restricted classifications grow as innovators produce new ways to express themselves. Audio recordings and software applications are increasingly considered to be products of intellectual property. Copyright infringement typically lasts for the lifetime of the author plus 70 years for works produced after January 1, 1978 (Moore, 4). The copyright lasts for 95 years from the year of the job's original release or for 120 years from the year of invention, whichever comes first, for unnamed, unattributed, or work produced for rent. Copyright can only be asserted by the creator or by someone who receives their claims from the creator, such as a publisher.

An inventor gets the total entitlements to avert others from duplicating or trading his or her goods or services for a specific period of time through patent rights. In most countries this period is estimated to be twenty years (Hopenhayn and Francesco, 7). Patent aspirants must strike a defendable argument. Due to the fact that patent claims can be as diverse as the technologies they cover, candidates must establish limitations for what constitutes their creation and what parts are subject to violation. Claims are evaluated by professionals to prevent preserving technology that is already accessible or simple to obtain. A trade secret is any amount of data that can be employed to manage an organization and is significant enough to provide a current or potential monetary benefit (Klasa et al., 1). Such include subscriptions for customers, marketing plans, delivery procedures, and ingredients for well-known food items. Contracts and nondisclosure agreements typically shield private information from release. Only if the information hasn't been disclosed are proprietary information considered to be genuine.

Remedies to Violation of Intellectual Property

The types of intellectual property rights that were violated, the severity of the harm, and the legal actions that the victims of the violation choose to take will all affect the remedies for intellectual property theft. The majority of the time, individuals who have experienced an intellectual property violation will bring a defamation suit to trial (Seuba, 8). Criminal proceedings for the violation will proceed independently from a legal trial, and only state officials, not the offended parties whose rights were violated, may commence court prosecutions, albeit they may denounce the violation to the law enforcement agencies. An injunction is an adequate remedy, and the complainant must show that if the court did not issue an injunction requiring the accused to act or prohibiting the accused from acting, significant harm would result (Seubar, 15). The victim of an intellectual property breach must demonstrate that a violation was actually committed in order to obtain a legal remedy. In an attempt to evade punishment, defendants may make a variety of claims, such as that there was no infringement because of acceptable use restrictions. 

Discussion: DynaStudy v Houston School District

This is a very simple and direct case of violation of intellectual property rights. Many study manuals were produced by DynaStudy. These manuals were reportedly very useful, so the principal of a Houston District High School bought a few, copied them, and gave them to the learners. The bottom of the study materials explicitly stated that duplicating the content was unauthorized. The principal was alerted to this comment by a teacher, who then responded through email when the principal dismissed the issue. The litigation's proof also includes further emails. The school staff had occasionally circulated copies of documents with the copyright notices and DynaStudy's logo obscured or edited out. The document was discovered openly shared on social media in places as far away as New Jersey, and some copies made it outside of the Houston school district. In this scenario, officials and instructors either had no knowledge of copyright law at all or were aware of it but chose to disregard the consequences. 

The court’s verdict found the school administration guilty of copyright infringement. DynaStudy was awarded $9.2 million as per the jury for the damages it faced (Danystudy v Houston School Distric). The school district went ahead to force the whole school administration to participate in online copyright training annually. I fully agree that the school administration was guilty of copyright violation. The fact that they claimed that they did not have knowledge of the copyright is not considerable. Ignorance, they say, is the worst defense. However, the principal knew about it but he disregarded it in an email. The compensation was also a good decision since DynaStudy was affected. I also understand the school district’s decision to have the school administration partake online classes on copyrights. It will reduce the chances of the school being involved in such a case again.

Sources

1. Moore, Adam, Adam D. Intellectual property and information control. Routledge, 2017.

2. Hopenhayn, Hugo A., and Francesco Squintani. "Patent rights and innovation disclosure." The Review of Economic Studies 83.1 (2016): 199-230.

3. Klasa, Sandy, et al. "Protection of trade secrets and capital structure decisions." Journal of financial economics 128.2 (2018): 266-286.

4. Seuba, Xavier. The global regime for the enforcement of intellectual property rights. Cambridge University Press, 2017.

5. Danystudy v Houston School District. https://advance-lexis-com.libdatab.strayer.edu/document/?pdmfid=1516831&crid=d3f2ebf3-fb74-43d1-a972-fc94ce5edfa8&pddocfullpath=%2Fshared%2Fdocument%2Fnews%2Furn%3AcontentItem%3A5W70-1341-DY2V-D2DH-00000-00&pdcontentcomponentid=261374&pdteaserkey=sr0&pditab=allpods&ecomp=rz2yk&earg=sr0&prid=883b7c11-8e96-41f4-b0ee-bc5fc68be82