Intellectual property differs from physical property

Tangibility- You dont have control over physical item

Excludability- You cant exclude others from use
Non-rivalrous consumption- You can still use it even if stolen
Purpose of IP is to encourage progress by giving ownership rights to owners for
their discoveries
Western IP is an INCENTIVE MECHANISM
-what other ways can people be encouraged to innovate?
3 Major Justifications For IP Rights
Utilitarian- incentive to promote common good (Thomas Jefferson)
Economic- takes effort and doesnt worsen anyone (John Locke)
Moral-Authors have moral right toput themselves into work
(BerneConvention)
Publishers of information have moral right to claim ownership of their work and
protect it from deformation, mutilation, or other modification
Cases Against IP Rights
- Why should one person have the rights to posses and use information
when that information can be used in many places at once and not be
consumed?
- People pirate b/c they believe restricted access to information is
unjustified
Types of Rights
Copyright: protects expression
Applies to Literary works, Musical, pictoral, graphic, scultural, motion
pictures, sound recordings, architectural, computer software
Five Rights
1.Right to reproduce
2. Right to adapt it or derive other works
3. Right to distribute copies
4. Right to display publicly
5. Right to perform publicly
Also Restricted
-You cant copyright an idea, only your expression of it (ex.Einstein
can copyright his article explaining general relativity, but he cant
copyright the ideas that make up the theory)
-Copyrights expire. 70 years after authors death or 95 after
publication
-Once you purchase an expressive work, you have the right
-Allows for limited use from users without permission from
publishers

Patents: Useful, new ideas

-Grants the right to exclude others from making, selling, or using the
invention throughout the US. Last 20 years
-Patent holder is given the right to make, use, sell, and authorize others to
sell
What does a patent cover?
-A process, such as new approach to brewing beer
-A manufactured article, like a new machine tool
-A composition of matter, like a new molecule
-Improvements of the above
-New or disctinct variety of plant
-Any new, Original, and ornamental design for an article of
manufacture
Patent Issues
-Frivolous Patents (not justified under any sort of grounds)
-Patent Trolling
-Chilling Effects
Trademark: Words, names, symbols, sounds, or colors that distinguish
goods/services from those made or sold by others and to indicate source
-Protects consumers from being misled
-Ensures free competition by protecting the entity that owns mark
-Deals with the marketplace of goods and services
-Can be renewed indefinitely
-Must be Protected
-Deals with commerce rather than ideas
Trade Secrets:
-Protects secrets that give companies competitive advantage
-Almost unlimited in terms of content and subject matter
-Relies on private measures to preserve exclusivity
Public Domain: Items not protected by IP and aspects of creative work not
protected
-Device that permits a system to work by leaving the raw material of
authorship available
Summary
-IP promotes innovation for the public good
-Copyright protects expression, not ides
-Patent protects ideas, not expression
-Trademarks prevent consumer confusion
-Trade secrets protect information
-Public Domain represents intellectual commons that we are all free to draw
on