Intellectual Property Rights

BUS 271-

September 12, 2015

Intellectual Property Rights

Intellectual property (IP) can be referred to as the creations of the mind. They may include innovations, symbols, images, artistic and literary works and names. The two categories of intellectual property include copyright and industrial property. Copyright includes such artistic and literary works as films, poems, novels, musical works, sculptures, drawings, paintings and architectural designs among others. On the other hand, industrial property includes industrial designs and patents among others. Intellectual property is vulnerable to theft and, therefore, there is a need to ensure there are laws protecting this property.

Creativity, which brings forth innovations, is significant to the development of businesses, industries and the economy at large. This is because; such innovations are known to generate sources of income for the population through the creation of job opportunities. Hence, when jobs are created, the economy of that region advances and the community progresses. This significance heightens the need to have intellectual property rights that govern and protect innovations from theft by unauthorized persons. Lack of proper intellectual property protection rights may cost an economy millions of dollars because of piracy, counterfeiting and other intellectual property forms of theft. Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), proved that losses as high as $250 billion could have been accrued in cross-border trade, in the form of tangible, pirated and counterfeit products in 2007 (Pham 4). This shows how losses can be accrued through unauthorized dealings in innovations. This means that those people responsible for these innovations being illegally traded across borders experienced a loss of $250 billion.

Rights of Intellectual property are crucial in the economy since they are used to generate revenue, signal competitiveness, and defend the...