•Term used to describe works of the mind
–Distinct and “owned” or created by a person or group
•Copyright law
–Protects authored works
•Patent law
–Protects inventions
•Trade secret law
–Helps safeguard information critical to an organization’s success
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•Copyrights
•Established in the U.S. Constitution
–Article I, Section 8, Clause 8
•Grants creators of original works the exclusive right to:
–Distribute
–Display
–Perform
–Reproduce work
–Prepare derivative works based upon the work
•Author may grant exclusive right to others
• Copyrights (cont’d.)
• Copyright term
– Copyright law guarantees developers the rights to their works for a certain amount of time
• Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act
– Created after 1/1/78, life of the author plus 70 years
– Created but not published or registered before 1/1/78, life of the author plus 70 years; no expiration before 12/31/2004
– Created before 1978 still in original or renewable term of copyright, 95 years from the date the copyright was originally secured
• Copyrights (cont’d.)
• Types of work that can be copyrighted
– Architecture
– Art
– Audiovisual works
– Choreography
– Drama
– Graphics
– Literature
– Motion pictures
• Copyrights (cont’d.)
• Types of work that can be copyrighted (cont’d.)
– Music
– Pantomimes
– Pictures
– Sculptures
– Sound recordings
– Other intellectual works:
• As described in Title 17 of U.S. Code
• Copyrights (cont’d.)
• Must fall within one of the preceding categories
• Must be original
– Evaluating originality can cause problems
• Fair use doctrine
– Allows portions of copyrighted materials to be used without permission under certain circumstances
– Maintains balance between protecting an author’s rights and enabling public access to copyrighted works
– Factors to consider when evaluating the use of copyrighted material
• Copyrights (cont’d.)
• Fair use doctrine factors include:
– Purpose and character of the use
– Nature of the copyrighted work
– Portion of the copyrighted work used
– Effect of the use upon the value of the copyrighted work
• Copyright infringement
– Copy substantial and material part of another’s copyrighted work
– Without permission
• Copyrights (cont’d.)
• Software copyright protection
– Raises many complicated issues of interpretation
– Copyright law should not be used to inhibit interoperability between the products of rival vendors
• The Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property (PRO-IP) Act of 2008
– Increased enforcement and substantially increased penalties for infringement
• Copyrights (cont’d.)
• General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)
– Trade agreement between 117 countries
– Created World Trade Organization (WTO) to enforce
• The WTO and the WTO TRIPS Agreement (1994)
– Many nations recognize that intellectual property has become increasingly important in world trade
– Established minimum levels of protection that each government must provide to the intellectual property of members
– Copyrights (cont’d.)
• World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)
– Agency of the United Nations
– Advocates for the interests of intellectual property owners
– WIPO Copyright Treaty provides additional copyright protections for electronic media
• Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)
– Civil and criminal penalties included
– Governs distribution of tools and software that can be used for copyright infringement
– Opponents say it restricts the free flow of information
Copyrights (cont’d.)
• Patents
• Grant of property right to inventors
• Issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)
• Permits an owner to exclude the public from making, using, or selling the protected invention
• Allows legal action against violators
• Prevents independent creation as well as copying
• Extends only to the United States and its territories and possessions
Patents (cont’d.)
• Applicant must file with the USPTO
– USPTO searches prior art
– Takes an average of 25 months
• Prior art
– Existing body of knowledge
– Available to a person of ordinary skill in the art
• Patents (cont’d.)
• An invention must pass four tests
– Must be in one of the five statutory classes of items
– Must be useful
– Must be novel
– Must not be obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the same field
• Items cannot be patented if they are:
– Abstract ideas
– Laws of nature
– Natural phenomena
• Patents (cont’d.)
• Patent infringement
– Making unauthorized use of another’s patent
– No specified limit to the monetary penalty
• Software patent
– Protects feature, function, or process embodied in instructions executed on a computer
• 20,000 software-related patents per year have been issued since the early 1980s
– Patents (cont’d.)
• Before obtaining a software patent, do a patent search
• Software Patent Institute is building a database of information
• Software cross-licensing agreements
– Large software companies agree not to sue each other over patent infringements
– Small businesses have no choice but to license patents
• Patents (cont’d.)
• Defensive publishing
– Alternative to filing for patents
– Company publishes a description of the innovation
– Establishes the idea’s legal existence as prior art
– Costs mere hundreds of dollars
– No lawyers
– Fast
• Patent troll firm
– Acquires patents with no intention of manufacturing anything; instead, licensing the patents to others
• Patents (cont’d.)
• Standard is a definition or format
– Approved by recognized standards organization or accepted as a de facto standard by the industry
– Enables hardware and software from different manufacturers to work together
• Submarine patent
– Patented process/invention hidden within a standard
– Does not surface until standard is broadly adopted
• Patents (cont’d.)
• Patent farming involves:
– Influencing a standards organization to make use of a patented item without revealing the existence of the patent
– Demanding royalties from all parties that use the standard
– Trade Secrets
• Trade secret
– Business information
– Represents something of economic value
– Requires an effort or cost to develop
– Some degree of uniqueness or novelty
– Generally unknown to the public
– Kept confidential
• Information is only considered a trade secret if the company takes steps to protect it
• Trade Secrets (cont’d.)
• Trade secret law has a few key advantages over patents and copyrights
– No time limitations
– No need to file an application
– Patents can be ruled invalid by courts
– No filing or application fees
• Law doesn’t prevent someone from using the same idea if it is developed independently
• World Trade Organization (WTO)
– TRIPs Agreement provides for a minimum level of protection for intellectual property
• Trade Secret Laws
• Uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA)
– Established uniformity in trade secret law
– Computer hardware and software can qualify for trade secret protection
• The Economic Espionage Act (EEA) of 1996
– Penalties of up to $10 million and 15 years in prison for the theft of trade secrets
• Employees and Trade Secrets
• Employees are the greatest threat to trade secrets
• Unauthorized use of an employer’s customer list
– Customer list not legally considered a trade secret
– Educate workers about the confidentiality of lists
• Nondisclosure clauses in employee’s contract
– Enforcement can be difficult
– Confidentiality issues are reviewed at the exit interview
• Employees and Trade Secrets (cont’d.)
• Noncompete agreements
– Protect intellectual property from being used by competitors when key employees leave
– Require employees not to work for competitors for a period of time
• Safeguards
– Limit outside access to corporate computers
– Guard use of remote computers by employees
• Key Intellectual Property Issues
• Issues that apply to intellectual property and information technology
– Plagiarism
– Reverse engineering
– Open source code
– Competitive intelligence
– Cybersquatting
• Plagiarism
• Stealing someone’s ideas or words and passing them off as one’s own
• Many students:
– Do not understand what constitutes plagiarism
– Believe that all electronic content is in the public domain
• Plagiarism also common outside academia
• Plagiarism detection systems
– Check submitted material against databases of electronic content
– Plagiarism (cont’d.)
• Plagiarism (cont’d.)
• Steps to combat student plagiarism
– Help students understand what constitutes plagiarism and why they need to cite sources
– Show students how to document Web pages
– Schedule major writing assignments in portions due over the course of the term
– Tell students that instructors are aware of Internet paper mills and plagiarism detection services
– Incorporate detection into an antiplagiarism program
• Reverse Engineering
• Process of taking something apart in order to:
– Understand it
– Build a copy of it
– Improve it
• Applied to computer:
– Hardware
– Software
• Convert a program code to a higher-level design
• Convert an application that ran on one vendor’s database to run on another’s
• Reverse Engineering (cont’d.)
• Compiler
– Language translator
– Converts computer program statements expressed in a source language to machine language
• Software manufacturer
– Provides software in machine language form
• Decompiler
– Reads machine language
– Produces source code
– Reverse Engineering (cont’d.)
• Courts have ruled in favor of reverse engineering:
– To enable interoperability
• Software license agreements forbid reverse engineering
• Ethics of using reverse engineering are debated
– Fair use if provides useful function/interoperability
– Can uncover designs that someone else has developed at great cost and taken care to protect
• Open Source Code
• Program source code made available for use or modification:
– As users or other developers see fit
• Basic premise
– Software improves
– Can be adapted to meet new needs
– Bugs rapidly identified and fixed
– High reliability
• GNU General Public License (GPL) was a precursor to the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
• Competitive Intelligence
• Gathering of legally obtainable information
– To help a company gain an advantage over rivals
• Often integrated into a company’s strategic plans and decision making
• Not the same as industrial espionage
• Without proper management safeguards, it can cross over to industrial espionage
• Competitive Intelligence (cont’d.)
• Cybersquatting
• Trademark is anything that enables a consumer to differentiate one company’s products from another’s
– May be a:
• Logo
• Package design
• Phrase
• Sound
• Word
– Cybersquatting (cont’d.)
• Trademark law
– Trademark’s owner has the right to prevent others from using same mark or confusingly similar mark
• Cybersquatters
– Registered domain names for famous trademarks or company names
– Hope the trademark’s owner would buy the domain name for a large sum of money
• Cybersquatting (cont’d.)
• To curb cybersquatting, register all possible domain names
– .org, .com, .info
• Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)
– ICANN is adding seven new top-level domains (.aero, .biz, .coop, .info, .museum, .name, and .pro)
– Current trademark holders are given time to assert their rights in the new top-level domains before registrations are opened to the general public
• Summary
• Intellectual property is protected by laws for:
– Copyrights
– Patents
– Trademarks
– Trade secrets
• Plagiarism is stealing and passing off the ideas and words of another as one’s own
• Reverse engineering
– Process of breaking something down in order to understand, build copy, or improve it
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• Summary (cont’d.)
• Open source code
– Made available for use or modification as users or other developers see fit
• Competitive intelligence
– Not industrial espionage
– Uses legal means and public information
• Cybersquatting
– Registration of a domain name by an unaffiliated party
