You have just been promoted to the marketing manager of international corporatio

Question

You have just been promoted to the marketing manager of international corporation. You remember in your marketing classes that intellectual property, specifically trademarks and service marks, are very important intellectual property that must be protected to ensure that your firm does not infringe on anyone else's marks. The courts have determined there are a broad range of trademarks and service marks. As the marketing manager, you need to be aware that parts of brand names or other forms of product identification may qualify for trademark protection. Then address the following:

Choose any intellectual property, such as patent, trademark, service mark, copyright, etc. and define and discuss.

Next, discuss when your company should protect this type of intellectual property and how you protect it.

Lastly, search the internet and library, and provide at least one example of how you could pursue legal action if an international business committed an intellectual property infringement.

Describe how this would affect the manner in which U.S. businesses would conduct business in that foreign country.

Explanation / Answer

Answer:

Patent:

A patent is an exclusive right granted for an invention – a product or process that provides a new way of doing something, or that offers a new technical solution to a problem. A patent provides patent owners with protection for their inventions. Protection is granted for a limited period, generally 20 years.

Patents provide incentives to individuals by recognizing their creativity and offering the possibility of material reward for their marketable inventions. These incentives encourage innovation, which in turn enhances the quality of human life.

Patent protection means an invention cannot be commercially made, used, distributed or sold without the patent owner’s consent. Patent rights are usually enforced in courts that, in most systems, hold the authority to stop patent infringement. Conversely, a court can also declare a patent invalid upon a successful challenge by a third party.

A patent owner has the right to decide who may – or may not – use the patented invention for the period during which it is protected. Patent owners may give permission to, or license, other parties to use their inventions on mutually agreed terms. Owners may also sell their invention rights to someone else, who then becomes the new owner of the patent. Once a patent expires, protection ends and the invention enters the public domain. This is also known as becoming off patent, meaning the owner no longer holds exclusive rights to the invention, and it becomes available for commercial exploitation by others.

The first step in securing a patent is to file a patent application. The application generally contains the title of the invention, as well as an indication of its technical field. It must include the background and a description of the invention, in clear language and enough detail that an individual with an average understanding of the field could use or reproduce the invention. Such descriptions are usually accompanied by visual materials – drawings, plans or diagrams – that describe the invention in greater detail. The application also contains various “claims”, that is, information to help determine the extent of protection to be granted by the patent.

An invention must, in general, fulfill the following conditions to be protected by a patent. It must be of practical use; it must show an element of “novelty”, meaning some new characteristic that is not part of the body of existing knowledge in its particular technical field. That body of existing knowledge is called “prior art”. The invention must show an “inventive step” that could not be deduced by a person with average knowledge of the technical field. Its subject matter must be accepted as “patentable” under law. In many countries, scientific theories, mathematical methods, plant or animal varieties, discoveries of natural substances, commercial methods or methods of medical treatment (as opposed to medical products) are not generally patentable.

Patents are granted by national patent offices or by regional offices that carry out examination work for a group of countries – for example, the European Patent Office (EPO) and the African Intellectual Property Organization (OAPI). Under such regional systems, an applicant requests protection for an invention in one or more countries, and each country decides whether to offer patent protection within its borders. The WIPO-administered Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) provides for the filing of a single international patent application that has the same effect as national applications filed in the designated countries. An applicant seeking protection may file one application and request protection in as many signatory states as needed.

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