What Is Intellectual Property? Why Is It Called "intellectual" Property? Why Is Intellectual Property Such an Important Issue for Entrepreneurial Firms?

Ashworth College

BZ450 Entrepreneurship

Assignment 07

07 July, 2015

Part A

What is intellectual property? Why is it called "intellectual" property? Why is intellectual property such an important issue for entrepreneurial firms?

Intellectual property

Intellectual property is a collection of ideas, concepts, theoretical findings, or abstracts whose utilization and application is capable of engendering or yielding particular advantage, income or benefits. It refers to the ideas originated and owned by an individual or company and are therefore protectable under the law. Intellectual property is any product of human intellect that is intangible but has value in the marketplace; (1) and the intent of intellectual property law is to encourage innovation by giving the creators of new ideas ample time to profit from their ideas and recuperate their development costs.

Why it is called “Intellectual” property

It is referred to as “intellectual” property because it is the product of human imagination, creativity, and inventiveness. (1) No idea is borne without physical, mental or financial inputs; and expending time and resources on a course makes it an investment that is worthy of protections. Therefore, intellectual property is protected under the law from the moment it is created and thereby becomes a property of the inventor which can be leveraged on for financial advantages. Traditionally, businesses have thought of their physical assets, such as land, buildings, and equipment as the most important. Increasingly, however, a company’s intellectual assets are the most important. (2) 

The importance of protecting Intellectual” property

Once a product has been developed, it would be easy to imitate the product and create a replica of the same idea faster and even for less; when this happens, it deprives creators the benefits of making gains from their creative efforts. The only way to prevent such occurrence is to protect the property until the entrepreneurial firms have fully benefited from their ideas. Intellectual property laws exist to encourage creativity and innovation by granting to individuals who risk their time and money in creative endeavors exclusive rights to the fruits of their labors for a period of time. (3)

Part B

Identify and briefly describe the three types of patents.

A patent is a means of claiming ownership of an invention that is novel, have utility and not obvious to a person of ordinary skill in that particular art. The patent-application process necessarily involves putting the idea for the invention in writing. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to understand the different types of patents and how they fit into businesses.

Utility patents: This covers discovery and invention of new and useful contents or processes. Utility patents are available for processes, machines, articles of manufacture, or compositions of matter that are deemed new, useful and non-obvious. The traditional subject matter of patents covers tangible, technical inventions, such as improvements to client-server systems, motors, radios, computer chips and various technical product features.

Design Patents: Design patents cover invention of new, original, and ornamental design for manufactured products in terms of look, shapes and dimension. While utility patents capture how ideas function or are being used, design patents protect the designs, shape and orientation of the idea.  

Plant Patents: A plant patent is granted by the Government to an inventor (or the inventor's heirs or assigns) who has invented or discovered and asexually reproduced a distinct and new variety of plant, other than a tuber propagated plant or a plant found in an uncultivated state. The grant, which lasts for 20 years from the date of filing the application, protects the inventor's right to exclude others from asexually reproducing, selling, or using the plant so reproduced.(4)

Part C

What is a trademark? Why are trademarks important?

Trademark is any word, name, symbol, or device used to identify the source or origin of products or services, and to distinguish those products or services from others. A trademark is like a brand name; it is any word(s) or symbol(s) that represent a product to identify and distinguish it from other products in the marketplace. The cardinal rule is that a mark must be distinctive. The more distinctive it is, the easier your trademark will be to enforce. This is why so many trademarked products have unique spellings (5)

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