When Is It Important For Innovators To Protect Their Intellectual Essay

When Is It Important For Innovators To Protect Their Intellectual Property - Essay Example Any innovation or improvement calls for investment in terms of time, funds and labour. Protection of this property is necessary to ensure recognition of work and encourage economic, cultural and social progress. Protection for intellectual property leads to a healthy competition and enhances value and quality of products, thereby promoting economic growth by means of technological development and enriched cultural advancement. It opens fresh trade avenues and enhance standard of living. The governments have to act and ensure implementation of intellectual property system to sustain businesses in a theft free environment to enable steady growth (Sebban, Guy 2005). Intellectual property is the name given to any new product or design or process and creative work of art or literature. Any invention or innovation involves dedicated effort on the part of an inventor who spends long hours in research and development. In addition, a significant amount of expenditure is also incurred towards development of new and innovative products or designs. If not protected and free copying is allowed, the inventor or innovator would soon get de-motivated, bringing stagnation to further development. Thus, protection of intellectual property assumes paramount importance. Intellectual property protection is essential to all businesses to exploit their new ideas and articles in the market and prevent piracy and theft by others. All art works also need to be credited for their creativity to enhance cultural growth (Sebban, Guy 2005). The protection methods can be broadly classified as 'formal or institutional' and 'strategic'. Formal protection methods include patent, trade secret, trade mark, and copyright, while strategic methods cover agreements of confidentiality, secrecy, lead and complexity (Iandiorio, Joseph S 1995). In the subsequent paragraphs, we would discuss, in detail, two formal methods, namely, patent and copyright, and one strategic method, namely, confidentiality agreement, bringing out differences, merits and demerits of each. Patent A 'patent' is a grant from a country's government that provides security or protection to a new invention or innovation by an individual or a group (in case of a company) for a limited period of time, extending up to a maximum of 20 years (Richer, David L 2000). The grant gives the inventor, the right to exclude others from making, using or selling the invention covered under the patent (Berreth SP 1996). The patents can be divided as 'utility' or 'design' patents. Utility patents are granted to primarily protect an invention. The invention refers to any of the following (Iandiorio, Joseph S 1995):- A new process, machine and composition of matter or A new improvement in a process or machine or New and useful utilization of old machines or devices or New combination of old and well-known parts of machines or processes. Utility patents may further be classified as chemical (related to compounds), electrical (covering all electrical components and circuits), and general or mechanical (including gears, shafts, and propellers etc for motor engines and machines). Award of utility patents require implementation of a new and useful idea followed by presentation in some physical form. Design patents are also awarded to new ideas, however, these cover only appearance, that is, ornamental aspect of

Critically evaluate the reasons for the recent global financial Essay

Critically evaluate the reasons for the recent global financial crisis, in the light of the articles in reference and other rele - Essay Example There are presently many analyses of the crisis, perhaps the best one appearing as a recent report from the United States Congress. It agrees with most analyses that, at least mark the origins of the crisis as occurring in the United States. and most of these analyses seem to reflect the two points of views that divide the US political system. In general one view would say that the crisis was precipitated by the greed of Wall Street speculators and subprime lenders. The other side would point to the victims of the crisis in the US, the ones who didn't have credit but agreed to take upon mortgages for housing they couldn't afford. The main effort of this report will be to describe how the crisis happened and rapidly spread to the UK, England, and other parts of the world. It will try to understand the corrective policies and measures that have been made. Finally it will address the question of who has responsibility for the crises occurring. Discussion The Setting On the eve of the of the 2007-2008 global economic crisis it is significant that all but a handful of the world's learned economists, despite the gradually accumulating data, could not see the disaster coming (Verick and Islam, 2010). Most of advisors were still under the influence of the 2001-2007 boom. Apparently this boom stood upon a shaky economic foundation that forced even the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to revise their forecasts. To understand the economics feeding this "straw boom", one must review world macroeconomics leading to it. There were two oil crises during the 1970s (Verick and Islam, 2010). The latest one occurred in 1979. This one produced a economic slowdown through the 1980s that especially characterized the developing countries. These countries had their economies more or less influenced by structural adjustment programs (SAPs) controlled by Western developed countries (Verick and Islam). SAPs were rendered by reduced macroeconomic volatility under the wisdom of government directed monetary policy in most of the developed countries. The 1990s can be experienced as low growth among these countries, with the Asian 1998 financial crisis all the more keeping that growth in low wings. The technology dot-com collapse occurred in 2001 and after it settled, the developed countries begin to collect themselves in a period of so-called sustained boom. Economist Robert Shiller is noted for reporting that the US housing boom started in the late 1990s (Verick and Islam, p. 15). This is notable as many commentators have placed blame for the current crises on the US monetary policy which lowered policy interest rates to 1 percent in 2003. The claim is that this effort in effect freed liquidity in US markets, heightening borrowing while creating debt-financed consumption (of housing). The point is that housing prices was on the rise in the US market before 2003. But even by that time, it only became more substantial as an open field for (housing) specula tors. The period from 2002 through 2007 became filled with "robust optimism". Bernard Beneche, a widely respected economist later to be Chair of the US Federal Reserved, termed the period as one of "Great Moderation". Global economic balances were fed by surplus capital from China and other Asian and Middle East countries, primarily into the US housing market, that is, the mortgage debt market. At this time,