Reasons for Proctection

Intellectual property (in the U.S.) is fundamentally about incentives to invent and create.¹

Granting intellectual property rights to an author creates incentive to make more creative works. By allowing the author to make money out of his creation and a monopoly on the copying, a return on investment could be established. Without such protection, free-riders would rein the imaginative output of artists and inventors. The monopoly is balanced the limited duration of the protection. The control granted by the current intellectual property laws will expire within a prescribed time.

There is some opposition to the control granted to intellectual property rights holders. Some people prescribe to the theory that ideas should be shared for all to all to benefit. If we regard the ideas we create as our property, then we should be able to protect the same like we protect our own home. The Lockean natural rights theory states that the labor of one’s body and the work of ones’ hands are own by the actor. Further, the theory also states that whatever is taken from nature by someone and is mixed with his labor, it becomes his property.²

In today’s world, everyone wants to make money. This instinct is what separates the men from boys, the leaders from the followers. To economically benefit from the one’s own ideas is the fundamental principle in entrepreneurship. Our government has sought to protect intellectual property through a series of laws amended over the years to keep in tune with the current trends.

If inventors, artists and businessmen (yes, even those guys) see that there can be little or no return on their ideas, they will stop making them. We see the day when the new songs cease, no new paintings or works of art are made, and no new inventions. Just think, if have no intellectual property rights, we will still be stuck listening to music with tape recorders and pressing endless buttons to skip or playback a song. We would have to watch movies through reels of film in our own home. And worse, start a car by turning a rotor with our bare hands.

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¹ Intellectual Property in the New Technological Age (Robert Merges et al., 3^rd Edition, Aspen Publishers, 2003, p. 10).

² John Locke, Two Treatises on Government reprinted in Intellectual Property in the New Technological Age (Robert Merges et al., 3^rd Edition, Aspen Publishers, 2003).

Ideas are protected

Intellectual Property is a branch of law that hardly taught yet extensively exercised in everyday business transactions. Everything around you has been the subject of IP law whether in the past or in the present. Every soda you buy, every gadget you purchase and every movie or television show you have seen is under IP law.

There are three major branches of IP law: Copyrights, Patents and Trademarks. Each is distinct but can be combined in a single product. I will briefly give a layman’s explanation to each branch.

Copyright

Simply put, this is an expression of an idea in an artistic form. The popular examples are songs, movies, and paintings. The core of copyright is the mode of expression and the fixation in a medium. You can think of song or a great painting but unless it is placed in a medium for people to see or feel, it can not be subject to copyright protection. This is the branch that is the easiest to protect, has no discretion for the government for protection and has the longest period of protection.

Patents

This is an expression of an idea or an improvement of an idea placed or manifested in a useful article. The imperative ingredient in patent is that the idea has to have utility. If the idea has no use whatsoever, then it might fall under copyright. This is the hardest branch of intellectual property to qualify for because it involves discretion upon the government body granting the patents. It is the hardest to obtain but ironically, has the shortest span of protection.

Trademarks

This is an expression of an idea to mark goods or services in trade. It is attaching an identity to a product or service. The ultimate purpose of trademarks is to identify the origin of the product. Trademarks are also subject to government discretion as each one has to be distinct from one another.