Intellectual property
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| - | For the DDWiki audience, the most relevant type of IP is the utility patent | + | For the DDWiki audience, the most relevant type of IP is the [[utility patent]]. The basic idea of a patent is that it gives the inventor a temporary monopoly over the invention (prevents others from producing it) in exchange for disclosure of the invention (so it becomes public knowledge and can be produced by others after the patent expires). |
Intellectual property laws and enforcement vary widely from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. There are inter-governmental efforts to harmonize them through international treaties such as the 1994 World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), while other treaties may facilitate registration in more than one jurisdiction at a time. Enforcement of copyright, as well as disagreements over medical and software patents, have so far prevented the emergence of a cohesive international system. | Intellectual property laws and enforcement vary widely from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. There are inter-governmental efforts to harmonize them through international treaties such as the 1994 World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), while other treaties may facilitate registration in more than one jurisdiction at a time. Enforcement of copyright, as well as disagreements over medical and software patents, have so far prevented the emergence of a cohesive international system. | ||
Revision as of 12:50, 13 March 2007
In law, intellectual property (IP) is an umbrella term for various legal entitlements which attach to certain names, written and recorded media, and inventions. The holders of these legal entitlements are generally entitled to exercise various exclusive rights in relation to the subject matter of the IP. Types of IP include:
- Patents
- Utility patents
- Design patents
- Plant patents
- Trademarks
- Copyright
- Trade secrets
For the DDWiki audience, the most relevant type of IP is the utility patent. The basic idea of a patent is that it gives the inventor a temporary monopoly over the invention (prevents others from producing it) in exchange for disclosure of the invention (so it becomes public knowledge and can be produced by others after the patent expires).
Intellectual property laws and enforcement vary widely from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. There are inter-governmental efforts to harmonize them through international treaties such as the 1994 World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), while other treaties may facilitate registration in more than one jurisdiction at a time. Enforcement of copyright, as well as disagreements over medical and software patents, have so far prevented the emergence of a cohesive international system.
This article does not provide legal advice, but rather offers only an introduction to the system of intellectual property. Inventors who are interested in patenting an invention should consult appropriate legal counsel.
Contents |
Patents
A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state to a patentee (the inventor or assignee) for a fixed period of time in exchange for the regulated, public disclosure of certain details of a device, method, process or composition of matter (substance) (known as an invention) which is new, inventive, and useful or industrially applicable.
The exclusive right granted to a patentee in most countries is the right to prevent or exclude others from making, using, selling, offering to sell or importing the claimed invention. The rights given to the patentee do not include the right to make, use, or sell the invention themselves. The patentee may have to comply with other laws and regulations to make use of the claimed invention. So, for example, a pharmaceutical company may obtain a patent on a new drug but will be unable to market the drug without regulatory approval, or an inventor may patent an improvement to a particular type of laser, but be unable to make or sell the new design without a license from the owner of an earlier broader patent covering lasers of that type.
The term "patent" originates from the Latin word patere which means "to lay open" (i.e., make available for public inspection) and the term letters patent, which originally denoted royal decrees granting exclusive rights to certain individuals or businesses.
Motivation
The motivation is to provide incentive for creation of new inventions by providing a mechanism by which the inventor can recoup costs of high risk research & development and startup activities and earn profit on the work of invention.
- Patents facilitate and encourage disclosure of innovations into the public domain for the common good. If inventors did not have the legal protection of patents, they might prefer or tend to keep their inventions secret. Awarding patents generally makes the details of new technology publicly available, for exploitation by anyone after the patent expires, or for further improvement by other inventors. Furthermore, when a patent's term has expired, the public record ensures that the patentee's idea is not lost to humanity.
- Patents provide incentives for economically efficient research and development (R&D). Many large modern corporations have annual R&D budgets of hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars. Without patents, R&D spending would be significantly less or eliminated altogether, limiting the possibility of technological advances or breakthroughs. Corporations would be much more conservative about the R&D investments they made, as third parties would be free to exploit any developments. This second justification is closely related to the basic idea underlying traditional property rights: why build a house if another person could freely occupy it?
- In many industries, once an invention exists, the cost of commercialization (testing, tooling up a factory, developing a market, etc.) is far more than the initial conception cost. Unless there is some way to prevent copies from competing at the marginal cost of production, companies will not make the investment.
- Patent rights create an incentive for companies to develop workarounds to patented inventions, thereby creating improved or alternative technologies that might not otherwise have been developed.
Utility patents
To qualify for a utility patent, the invention must be
- useful
- novel
- nonobvious
Prior art
In the United States,
