Intellectual property rights and

computer technology

By
NAKATO RUTH
 Introduction
• Gaining skills to provide computer technology
products, services & software requires a
considerable investment both of time & money.
• So individuals who do this work should reap
financial rewards for their efforts.
• These rewards create an atmosphere of
creativity & competitiveness, which in turn create
jobs that drives the economy.
 Intellectual property
• Intellectual property: creation of mind, such
as an invention, artistic work, symbol, name,
image, or design used in commerce
• Intellectual property is often a key asset of a
company, and sometimes the only asset
• The Internet makes it easy for anyone to
copy intellectual property and to distribute it
to a large number of users
 Property rights (2)
• More than 1/3 of the software worldwide is
counterfeit or pirated
• $29 Billion in yearly losses from software
piracy
• Music sharing,
• Electronic books, articles, etc.
• Illegal file sharing of videos
• Etc.
 Property rights
protection
• Intellectual property are Intangible property created by
individuals or corporations that are subject to
protections
• Intellectual property is subject to a variety of
protections including

• Copy right
• Trade secrets
• Patent laws.
• Trade marks
 Copy rights

• A statutory grant that protects creators of

intellectual property against copying by
others for any purpose for the period of 28
years.
• Copy right protection has been extended to
books, periodicals, lectures, dramas,
musical compositions, maps, drawings,
artwork of any kind, and motion pictures.
 Copyright…
• The intent of copyright laws has been to
encourage creativity and authorship by
ensuring that creative people receive the
financial and other benefits of their work.
 copy right
• In 1980 congress passed a computer
software copy right Act.
• The act clearly provides protection for source
and object code and for copies of the original
sold.
• The act sets the rights of the purchaser to
use the software while the creator retains the
legal title.
 Copyright License
• When permission is given by the copyright
owner for another person to use their
work. The license spells out specifically
when, where, and how the work can be
used.
 Copyright and Computers
• Internet is protected by copyright (original
authorship)
• Does not protect ideas, procedures,
systems, or methods of operation.
 Fair use
• The manner in which a particular work can
be used by educators & still respects the
rights of the copyright holder
 Fair use guidelines
• Student/academic assignments
• Motion media (10% of 3 minutes)
• Text – 10% or 1000 words
• Poems – up to 250 words
• Music – 10% or 30 seconds
• Photos or images – up to 5 works from one
author, 10% or 15 works, lesser, collection
• Database information – 10% or 2500 fields
 Public Domain
• Original works that can be used freely by anyone. Any rights
that the original owner had, have been given up, or have
expired.
• Once a copyright on the work expires, that work goes into the
public domain. Other works into the public domain include;
– Work owned by government,
– non-copyrightable items such as ideas, facts,
– Works intetionally put in the public domain by the owner of the
copyright
– Works that lost copyright for various reasonsbefore the copyright
expired.
 Patents
• A patent is a legal document that grants
the owner an exclusive monopoly on the
ideas behind an invention for 17 years.
• Designed to ensure that inventors of new
machines or methods are rewarded for
their labor while making wide spread use
of their inventions
 Patents…
• The patent owner can provide detailed
diagrams for those wishing to use the ideas
under a license.
• The granting of patents is determined by the
patent office and relies on court rulings.
• The strength of patent protection is that it
grants monopoly on the underlying concepts
and ideas of the software.
 Trade secret
• A trade secret is information that gives a company or
business a competitive advantage over others in the
field. It may be a formula, a design process, a device,
or a trade figures.
• Any intellectual work or product used for business
purpose that can be classified as belonging to that
business provided it is not based on information in the
public domain.
• Software that contains unique elements, procedures,
or compilations can be included as trade secrets.
 Trade secret…
• The owners of trade secrets must take
care to bind employees and customers
with nondisclosure agreements and to
prevent the secret from falling into the
public domain.
 Trademarks
• A trademark is a product or service identifying
label.
• It is a mark that attempts to distinguish a service
or a product in the minds of the consumers. The
label may be any word, name, picture, or
symbol.
• It is very well known that consumers tend to
choose between products through association
with the products brand name.
• Because trade marks are used by customers to
choose among competing products, they are
vigorously protected by their owners.
 Protection under trade marks
• A trade mark is a symbol or mark with
financial value that helps customers
connect to the product.
• The main purpose of trade mark is to
make the product stand out against the
competitors.
Protection under trade marks…
• The protection of computer programs by trade
marks is achieved through self realisation by the
infringer that it is not easy to copy,
• change or redistribute copies of well known
software works.
• E.g. it is not easy to make copies of windows 95,
windows 2000, etc & resell them. For big names
software developers this realisation by would be
infringers works far better than law enforcements.
 Infringement
• Any body moving within the protected
domains to claim rights for the use of
someone else’s manifestation of an idea
without permission from the holder of the
rights is an infringer.
 Types of infringement
• Direct infringement;
– The infringer knowingly or otherwise makes, uses, sells,
or copies a protected item without any alteration.
• Inducement infringement;
– the infringer intentionally supports infringement activities
on a protected item without individually taking part in the
infringement activities.
• Contributory infringement;
– the infringer takes part in the infringement of a protected
item.
 Copyright infringement

• Copy right infringement is very difficult to prove.

• However there are guidelines that courts follow;
– Whether the infringer has knowledge or visual contact
with the work.
– Whether the individual claiming to be the owner has
a varied copyright.
– Whether work under dispute is major revision with
substantially new contents of the original or just a
variation.
 Patent infringement
• Like copyright infringement , patent
infringement is also difficult to detect.
• Highly sophiscated methods of policing
and investigative work need to be laid
down and followed.
• It is purely the efforts of owner of the
patents, & he must meet all the expenses
incurred during the investigation and
prosecution of the infringer if caught.
 Patent infringement…
• once the infringer is caught and
determined guilty by the court a heavy
settlement is collected by the perpetrator.
 Trade mark infringement

• To prove infringement of the trademark, one

must prove beyond doubt that the infringer’s
action was likely to confuse the public.
• Then the infringer may be asked to pay any or a
combination of;
– Monetary awards based on the profits he made on the
product displaying the mark.
– Losses the owner incurred due to the infringement
– Pay punitive/disciplinary damages
– Pay legal fees.
 Challenges to Intellectual property Rights

• Digital media differ from books periodicals and

other media in terms of;
• ease of replication;
• ease of transmission,
• ease of alteration,
• difficulty classifying a software work as a program, book or even
music
• Compactness making theft easy
• Difficulties in establishing uniqueness.
• Computer software has features which donot fit easily into
traditional legal categories for patent and copyright protection.
 Challenges to Intellectual property
Rights…
• The internet has made it even more difficult to protect
intellectual property.
• With the world wide web, one can easily copy and
distribute virtually any thing to thousands and even
millions of people around the world even if they are using
different types of computer systems.
• E.g., music industry is worried because individuals can
illegally copy MP3 music files to websites where they can
be downloaded.
• The internet was designed to transmit information freely
around the world including copyrighted information.
 Challenges to Intellectual property
Rights…
• The manner in which information is
obtained & presented on the web further
challenges intellectual protections.
• Web pages can be constructed from bits
of texts, graphics, sound, or video that
may come from many different sources.
• Each item may belong to a different
entity, creating complicated issues of
ownership and compensation.
 Ethical issues
• The central issue posed to individuals
concerns copying software.
• Should I (You) copy for my own use a
piece of software protected by trade
secret, copyright, or patent law?
• If everyone copied software, very little new
software would be produced because
creators could not benefit from the results
of their work.
• Thank you for your attention