From a general perspective one could suppose that IP protection must be aimed at life-changing information. For example, one discovers a gold vein under their house, the gold to be sold, of course. This type of IP is a trade secret. It is protectable under contract, tacit or recorded.

Then, because the gold is under a house, the discoverer is forced to be ingenious. They hatch a method and craft tools to get the gold out. The method and the tools are technical solutions. As such they are inventions and their concepts are protectable by patents, the latter being bundles or rights to allow the discoverer a.k.a the inventor to stop any other person from using the concepts.

The inventions are sold under specific signs such as trade names and logos. The signs are protectable by trademark registration.

The tools may adopt specific appearances necessitated by function or just designed in a particular fanciful way. The appearances are protectable by industrial design registration.

Manuals for use of the tools and other publications such as brochures may be produced to provide buyers and potential buyers with more information related to the tools or the business surrounding them. This information and the presentation thereof are protectable under copyright.

So the discoverer eventually has the five traditional forms of IP: trade secrets, inventions, trademarks, industrial designs and copyright.

The question now is – is it a form of business acumen that the designer keeps these IP forms to their own name, not usable by anyone else besides them unless as authorised by them? It is critical to keep in mind that IP protection is afforded for a long time. Maximum: forever for trade secrets unless disclosed to a third party (think of Coca Cola and KFC recipes), 20 years for patents, forever for trademarks, 15 years for industrial designs, and,for copyright 50 years plus lifetime of author post-creation of the copyright.

Question:

What if other people have the same gold under their houses and cannot find concepts to use to extract their gold except for the patented concepts? The patent prevents them and as long as the discoverer withholds permission for the entire 20-year lifetime of the patent. The gold has to wait for an entire 20 years before it comes out into the economy.

Is this the aim of IP law or just a necessary consequence? Does the economy benefit? Are jobs created? Is the community fed?

Take this concept and apply it everywhere – in medicine, transportation, education.

To me the answer is neither here nor there.

We live in a capitalist society. Humans are driven by gain. Humans believe in a “head start”, recognition, “legacy”, a “name”, a “better life”, “power”, “influence”. As such humans have invented instruments such by which they obtain any of these listed. Those instruments include money and force. One way to generate the former is to be a sole provider of a necessity or a desire, and a way of generating the latter is to generate a lot of the former.

As such it is up to any individual to decide whether to be business savvy or selfish.

As an IP attorney I’ll help them anyways.

Brian Dube, admitted and duly registered Patent Attorney, South Africa. +27766734288 admin@dubeiplaw.co.za.

#Intellectual Property #IPProtection #Patents #Trademarks #Copyright #IPlaw