Intellectual Property

• Intellectual property


  Works of the mind that are distinct and owned or created by a single person or group
• Examples of intellectual property


  • Art and music
  • Books and film
  • Formulas, inventions and processes
• Ways intellectual property is protected


  • Copyright
  • Patent
  • Trade secret laws
• Copyright


  The exclusive right to distribute, display, perform, or reproduce an original work in copies, or to prepare derivative works based on the work
• Copyright infringement


  A violation of the rights secured by the owner of a copyright
• Copyright law guarantees developers the rights to their works for a certain amount of time
• Since 1960, the term of copyright has been extended 11 times; new works are protected for the life of the author plus 70 years
• Eligibility criteria for copyright


  Work must be original and fall within one of the categories described in Title 17 of the U.S. Code
• Fair use doctrine


  Allows portions of copyrighted materials to be used without permission
• Factors for court decisions regarding fair use


  • Purpose and character of the use
  • Nature of the copyrighted work
  • The portion of the work used in relation to the whole
  • Effect of the use on the value of the copyrighted work
• Software copyright protection


  Proving infringement requires showing striking resemblance that could be explained only by copying
• PRO-IP Act of 2008


  Increased trademark and copyright enforcement and substantially increased penalties for infringement
• General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)


  Multilateral agreement governing international trade that established the World Trade Organization (WTO)
• Despite GATT, copyright protection varies greatly from country to country
• Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)


  Established minimum levels of protection that each government must provide to the intellectual property of all WTO members
• World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty (1996)


  Encourages the use of intellectual property as a means to stimulate innovation and creativity, and ensures that computer programs are protected as literary works and the arrangement and selection of material in databases is protected
• Key terms of the WTO TRIPS Agreement


  • Computer programs are protected as literary works
  • Authors of computer programs and producers of sound recordings have the right to prohibit the commercial rental of their works to the public
  • Patent protection is available for any invention, whether a product or process
  • Discrimination is not allowed based on the place of invention
  • Trade secrets must be protected against breach of confidence and other acts that are contrary to honest commercial practices
• Digital Millennium Copyright Act (1998)


  Implements the WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty, and outlaws technologies that can defeat copyright protection devices but permits reverse engineering for encryption, interoperability, and computer security research
• Patent


  A grant of a property right issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to an inventor that permits its owner to exclude the public from making, using, or selling a protected invention
• The USPTO searches the prior art before granting a patent, and abstract ideas, laws of nature, and natural phenomenon cannot be patented
• Patent infringement


  Unauthorized use of another's patent, for which courts can award up to three times the amount of damages claimed by the patent holder
• Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (2011)


  Enacted a major change in patent law, changing the U.S. patent system from a "first-to-invent" to a "first-inventor-to-file" system and expanding the definition of prior art
• Software patent


  Protects a feature, function, or process embodied in instructions executed on a computer, though the courts have become more restrictive in granting them in recent years
• Cross-licensing agreements


  Each party agrees not to sue the other over patent infringements, typically involving large software companies, making it difficult for small businesses to enforce their patents
• Trade secret


  Business information that represents something of economic value, required effort or cost to develop, has some degree of uniqueness or novelty, is generally unknown to the public, and is kept confidential
• Trade secret laws protect more technology worldwide than patent laws do
• Advantages of trade secrets

  • No time limitations on the protection
  • No need to file an application, make disclosures, or disclose the secret to gain protection
  • Trade secrets cannot be ruled invalid by the courts
• U.S. trade secret laws


  • Uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA)
  • Economic Espionage Act (EEA) of 1996
  • Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016
• Nondisclosure clause


  Part of an employment contract that prohibits an employee from revealing company secrets
• Noncompete agreement


  Part of an employment contract that prohibits an employee from working for any competitors for a period of time
• Plagiarism


  The act of stealing someone's ideas or words and passing them off as one's own
• Actions schools can take to combat student plagiarism


  • Help students understand plagiarism and why they need to cite sources
  • Show students how to document material found online
  • Schedule major writing assignments in portions due over the course of the term
  • Tell students instructors are aware of paper mills and plagiarism detection services
  • Incorporate detection software and services
• Reverse engineering


  The process of taking something apart in order to understand it, build a copy of it, or improve it, which violates copyright and trade secret laws but can also be useful for detecting software bugs and security holes
• Open source code


  Any program whose source code is made available for use or modification, as users or other developers see fit
• Reasons for developing open source code


  • To earn respect for solving a problem
  • To pay back the developer community
  • To promote expertise and/or attract new clients
  • To recover maintenance costs
• Reverse engineering


  Breaking something down in order to understand it, build a copy of it, or improve it
• Reverse engineering


  • Violates copyright and trade secret laws
  • Software license agreements typically forbid reverse engineering
  • The courts have ruled in favor of using reverse engineering to enable interoperability
  • Reverse engineering can also be a useful tool in detecting software bugs and security holes
• Reasons for developing open source code


  • To earn respect for solving a problem
  • To pay back the developer community
  • To promote expertise and/or attract new clients
  • To recover maintenance cost
  • To avoid the hassle of license and marketing
• Competitive intelligence


  Legally obtained information gathered to help a company gain an advantage over rivals
• Competitive intelligence


  • Integrated into a company's strategic plans and decision making
  • Not the same as industrial espionage (the use of illegal means to obtain business information)