Ethical Issues in the Business or Corporate World: MARKETING
Ethical Issues in the Business or Corporate World: RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Ethical Issues in the Business or Corporate World: PRODUCTION
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS
What is Intellectual Property?
Intellectual property or IP refers to creations of the mind. Examples are inventions, literary and artistic works, designs, and symbols, names, and images used in commerce.
IP is protected in law by patents, copyright, and trademarks that enable people to receive recognition or financial privilege from what they invent or create. By hitting the right balance between the interests of innovators and the larger public interest, the Intellectual Property system aims to nurture an environment where creativity and innovation can prosper.
What are Intellectual Property Rights?
Intellectual property rights are the rights given to persons over the inventions and creations of their minds. They usually give the creator or inventor an exclusive right over the use of his or her creation for a certain period.
Intellectual property rights are customarily divided into two main areas which are copyright and rights related to copyright and industrial property.
A. Copyright and rights related to copyright:
The rights of authors of literary and artistic works like books and other literary writings, musical compositions, paintings, sculptures, computer programs, and films are protected by copyright, for a minimum period of 50 years after the death of the author.
B. Industrial Property
Industrial Property can be divided into two main areas: it can be characterized as the protection of distinctive signs, like trademarks and geographical indications.
The protection of such distinctive signs tries to enable and guarantee fair competition and to protect consumers, by allowing them to make conscious choices between different goods and services. The protection may last indefinitely, given that the sign in question goes on to be distinctive.
Other categories of industrial property are protected to motivate innovation, design, and the innovation of technology. The social objective is to give protection for the results of investment in the improvement of new technology, giving the incentive to finance research and development activities.
It should be noted that the exclusive rights given are generally subject to several limitations and exceptions, intended for fine-tuning the balance that has to be established between the legal interests of right holders and of users.
1. Plagiarism
Plagiarism is the act of stealing a person's ideas, works, and creations and claiming them off as your own. Since there has been an explosion in the quantity of content, it became easier to copy-paste articles into a different paper or report. There are also websites where you can order or buy papers. To fight plagiarism issues, teachers and professors have started programs that will detect plagiarism.
Schools and universities have started different method to combat plagiarism:
To help students specify and comprehend what comprises plagiarism.
To help learners understand how and why they should appropriately cite websites and other sources or references.
To reduce the probability where students would copy others' work by having pieces due to the term.
To inform students about the existence of plagiarism detection services.
2. Reverse Engineering
Reverse engineering is the method of taking something apart to understand, create, and duplicate it. Reverse Engineering may be deemed unethical because it allows an organization to access the copyrighted and trade secrets of a corporation.
3. Open Source Code
Open source code pertains to any accessible source code program in the public domain that can be shared, utilized, or revised by anyone. It is intended for improving software programs by enhancing features and repairing bugs through collaboration.
It also delivers better solutions for certain problems at little or no cost. Open software developers’ objective is to earn profits from software services and support rather than the software itself.
4. Competitive Intelligence
Competitive intelligence is legally obtained information used to enhance a company's performance over its competitors. It is incorporated into a corporation's strategic plan.
Effective competitive intelligence needs continual meetings, analysis, and evaluation of information to improve the decision-making procedure. If it is not dealt with appropriately, it directs to industrial spying which holds huge penalties.
Competitive intelligence analysts should prevent unethical or illegal attitudes related to the concept of competitive intelligence like lying, theft, bribery, misrepresentation, or eavesdropping.
5. Trademark Infringement
Trademark infringement is the unauthorized practice of a similar trademark or service label that causes confusion and cheating in a manner that harms the purpose of a registered trademark.
It is utilized to mislead consumers about the real source of the products or services, which is common for popular brands. A case in trademark infringement directs to an ultimatum to avoid additional infringement.
For registered trademark infringement, the Lanham Act awards financial damages to the complainant, based on the casualty of sales revenues that arose while the trademark was being illegally used. Criminal remedies are given in some jurisdictions.
6. Cybersquatting
Cybersquatting is the act of registering domain names to benefit from selling these domains that are identical to company names or popular trademarks.
Cybersquatting is also known as “domain squatting."
Since the domain names can only be registered once, it is unethical for an individual to profit from acquiring domain names similar to the corporation's name or trademark because it urges the company to either pay or litigates.
The Anti-cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) is a law that has been authorized by the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to protect against any illegal cybersquatting actions.
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