Intellectual property is a term used for an area of the law dealing with creations of the mind and the corresponding property rights to these creations.  Patents, trade-marks, copyright, industrial designs and similar rights are referred to as intellectual property. These rights are property in the sense that they are based on the legal right to exclude others from using the property and in that ownership of the rights can be transferred. The rights are intellectual in the sense that they protect intangible subjects, usually arising out of some form of human creativity.

What is a Copyright? The copyright is established in the US Constitution. Copyright deals with the rights of an author or creator of an original work.  Copyright does not protect many of the things people think it does.  Copyright does not protect ideas, concepts, facts, names, titles, slogans, procedures or methods.  Copyright only protects original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression. Examples of tangible mediums of expression include photos, video recordings, audio recordings, written records, paintings and computer programs.  Copyright protection starts as soon as the author or creator’s original work is fixed in one of the above tangible mediums of expression, and the author or creator then begins establishing common law rights.  But, like with trademark, the work must be registered in order to be able to pursue alleged copyright infringers. I’m sure most of you are aware that photographs and videos have copyright protection, and ownership is attributed to the photographer or videographer.  But copyright protection is also afforded to the text on your business website, or the language in your advertising and marketing material, whether or not you realized that when you wrote it.

What is a Trademark? Basically, a trademark is your company’s brand. In more technical terms, a trademark is a word, name, symbol or device that is used in commerce with a product to indicate the source of the product and to distinguish it from the products of others.  While “trademark” is the most commonly used term, there is a distinction made for words, names, symbols or devices used in trade to indicate the source of a service, rather than a product, and these are called service marks.  A trade name is the term used to refer to a business’ name.  “Trade dress” refers to the appearance of a product or its packaging, when that appearance indicates the source of the product.

What is a Patent? Patent is issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). A patent is a set of rights given to an inventor for a certain period of time.   In order to receive this protection, the inventor must show that the invention is new, non-obvious and useful or industrially applicable.  In order to receive protection, the invention must be publicly disclosed, through registration.

What is a Trade Secret? A trade secret is basically your business’ confidential information.   In most states, this includes any formula, pattern, practice, physical device, design, idea, process or compilation of information that provides the owner of the information with a competitive advantage in the marketplace and treated in a way that can reasonably be expected to prevent the public or competitors from learning about it, absent improper acquisition or theft. Trade secrets can be very important to your business, but are often overlooked or abused.  You cannot register your trade secrets the same way you can a trademark, copyright or patent.  Instead, your rights and protection relate specifically to your ability to keep your secrets secret.

The key intellectual property issues:

·  Plagiarism is theft and passing off of someone’s ideas or words as one’s own. Many students do not understand what constitute plagiarism and they believe that all electronic content is in the public domain.

·   Reverse engineering is a process of taking something apart in order to understand, build a copy of it and improve it.

·  Open source code is made available for use or modification as users or other developers see fit.

· Competitive intelligence is the ethical gathering and analysis of competitor and market information from open sources. This analysis is used by organizations to make better strategic decisions.

Social network is the mapping and measuring of relationships and flows between people, groups, organizations, computers, URLs, and other connected information/knowledge entities. The nodes in the network are the people and groups while the links show relationships or flows between the nodes. Social network provides both a visual and a mathematical analysis of human relationships. To understand networks and their participants, we evaluate the location of actors in the network. Measuring the network location is finding the centrality of a node. These measures give us insight into the various roles and groupings in a network who are the connectors, mavens, leaders, bridges, isolates, where the clusters are and who is in them, who is in the core of the network.

What is a social networking web site? Social networking web site is a site whose purpose is to create an online community of Internet users that enables members to break down barriers created by time, distance and cultural differences. It allow people o interact with others online by sharing opinions, insights, information, interest and experience.

A social shopping web site can brings shoppers and sellers together in a social networking environment in which members can share information and make recommendations while shopping online.

Social Networking Ethical Issues when you have a community of tens of millions of users, not everyone is going to be a good neighbor and abide by the rules of the community. Many will stretch or exceed the bounds of generally accepted behavior.

  Cyberbullying is the harassment, torment, humiliation, or threatening of one minor or group of minors via the internet or cell phone. Cyberstalking is threatening the behavior or unwanted advances directed at an adult using the internet or other forms of online and electronic communications. It is the adult version of cyberbullying.

Thank you very much for reading my blog.

References: www.google.com.ph

                      http://en.wikipedia.org

                      http://thelawforcreatives.com