INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS AND COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS AND COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY

Tech Installer

COMPUTER PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

Computer products consist of those parts of the computer you can see and touch (e.g., the keyboard, CPU, printer, and monitor);

Computer products also consist of Computer software which is a set of logical instructions to perform a desired task;

A service is an act carried out on behalf of someone, usually a customer. If the service is going to be paid for, the provider must strive to please the customer; it is crucial.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS

Intellectual property rights refers to a specific set of rights aimed to protect creativity of individual innovators

Gaining the skills to provide computer technology products, services, and software requires a considerable investment both in time and money. So the individuals who do this work should reap financial rewards for their efforts

Such rewards create an atmosphere of creativity and competitiveness

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In order to encourage innovators, society must protect their efforts and resources. To do this, a specific set of rights, collectively known as intellectual property rights, has been recognized, and laws have been enacted by different countries and groups of countries to protect those rights

Intellectual property rights form a wide scope of mechanisms that include copyrights, patents, trademarks, protection of trade secrets, and, increasingly, personal identity rights

Copy rights

Internationally, copyright is a right, enforceable by law, accorded to an inventor or creator of an expression.

Such expressions may include creative works (literary, dramatic, musical, pictorial, graphic, and artistic) together with audiovisual and architectural works and sound recordings.

In general, every original work that has a tangible form and is fixed in a medium is protectable under the copyright law

Application for a Copyright

For authors and/or creators of works who need this kind of protection, the process begins with an application to the copyright office

Copyright Office requires an applicant to include with the application a copy of the work for which a copyright is sought and to file for copyright within three months of the first distribution of the work

Upon receipt of the application by the Copyright Office, it is reviewed to make sure it meets the three criteria for the issuing of a copyright

Duration of a Copyright

In the United States the duration of copyright protection falls into two periods: those copyrights granted before the 1978 Copyright Act and those granted after that date;

If a copyright was received for a published work before 1978, that copyright lasts for 75 years after the date of issuance. For unpublished works the copyrights will expire on December 31, 2002 regardless of when they were issued;

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If the copyright was received after 1978, the work remains protected by copyright laws for the lifetime of the author plus 50 years.

In the case of more than one author of the works, the protection lasts for the lifetime of the longest living author plus 50 years. For all works made for hire, that is, works made as part of contracted employment, the coverage lasts 75 years from the date of the first publication or 100 years from the date of creation

Pa t e n t s

A patent: is an exclusive right granted for an invention, which is a product or a process that provides a new way of doing something, or offers a new technical solution to a problem;

An invention or discovery is patentable if it meets two basic requirements;

The first requirement is that the invention or discovery for which the patent is sought is new and useful, or is a new and useful improvement of any of the following: process, manufacture (covering all products that are not machines), and machine (covering all mechanisms and mechanical products and composition of matter, which includes all factory-manufactured life-forms)

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The second requirement is that the invention or discovery must satisfy the following four conditions and all must apply:

1.Utility: An invention or discovery serves a basic and minimum useful purpose to the general public or to a large percentage of the public without being a danger to the public, illegal or immoral.

2.Novelty: The invention or discovery for which a patent is sought must be new, not used, known or published somewhere before.3.No obviousness: The invention or discovery for which patent protection is sought must not have been obvious to anyone with ordinary skills to produce or invent in its disclosed form.4.Disclosure: There must be adequate disclosure of the product for which a patent is sought. Such a disclosure is often used by the Patent Office in its review to seek and prove or disprove the claims on the application form and also to enable the public under the contract with the government to use the invention or discovery safely and gainfully

Application for a Patent

The process of obtaining a patent begins with the filing of an application with the patent office.

The application must give a clear and detailed disclosure of the invention or discovery including its workings, experiments made, data used, results obtained, safety record, and effectiveness if used properly.

Its weaknesses, if observed, and all pertinent information that may be required if the Patent Office is to carry out a similar experiment must also be submitted

Duration of a Patent

After the review process is completed and this may take some time depending on the disclosure provided and the type of invention or discovery, the patent is then issued to the applicant for the invention, and only for that invention, not including its variations and derivatives;

The protection must last for a number of years, seventeen years in the United States (20 years in Tanzania). During this time period, the patent law protects the inventor or discoverer from competition from others in the manufacture, use, and sale of the invention or discovery.

What kind of protection does a patent offer?

Patent protection means that the invention cannot be commercially made,used distributed or sold without the patent owners consent;

These patent rights are usually enforced in a court, which, in most systems, holds the authority to stop patent infringement;

Conversely, a court can also declare a patent invalid upon a successful challenge by a third party.

What rights does a patent owner have?

A patent owner has the right to decide who may or may not use the patented invention for the period in which the invention is protected;

The patent owner may give permission to, or license, other parties to use the invention on mutually agreed terms;

The owner may also sell the right to the invention to someone else, who will then become the new owner of the patent;

Once a patent expires, the protection ends, and an invention enters the public domain, that is, the owner no longer holds exclusive right to the invention, which becomes available to commercial exploitation by others.

Public Domain

A patent provides protection for the invention to the owner of the patent. The protection is granted for a limited period, generally 20 years;

When the patent protection expires, the patent together with all disclosures go into the public domain for anyone to use;

Once a patent expires, the protection ends, and an invention enters the public domain, that is, the owner no longer holds exclusive right to the invention, which becomes available to commercial exploitation by others.

Trade Secrets

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 trade figures;

The generic definition is that it is a collection of information in a given static format with strategic importance. The format may be a design expressing the information, a formula representing the collection of information, a pattern, a symbol, or an insignia representing the information;

Whatever the format the collected information takes, it must have given or offered an advantage to the owner which places that owner a degree above the competition.

Characteristics of Trade Secrets

A trade secret is characterized by the following:1.The extent to which the information is known outside the business. If a lot of people outside the company or business know or have access to the collection of information that constitutes the trade secret, then it is no longer a trade secret2.The extent of measures taken by individuals possessing the trade secret to guard the secrecy of the information. If the information is to remain known by as few people as possible, there must be a detailed plan to safeguard that information and prevent it from leaking;

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3. The value of the information to the owner and to the competitor. If the collection of information forming the trade secret has little or no value to the competitor, then it can no longer be a trade secret because it offers no definite advantage to the owner over the competitor.

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4. The amount of effort or money spent by the owner to develop or gather the information. The logic here is usually the more money the developer puts in a project, the more value is placed on the outcome. Because there are some information or project outcomes that do not require substantial initial investments, the effort here is what counts.

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5. The ease or difficulty with which the information could be properly acquired or duplicated by others. If it will take a lot of effort and money to duplicate the product or the information, then its value and therefore advantage to the competitor diminishes;

Duration of Trade Secrets

Trade secrets have an indefinite life of protection as long as the secrets are not revealed;

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;

A trade mark is a distinctive sign, which identifies certain goods or services as those produced or provided by a specific person or enterprise.

The importance of a trademark

A trade mark provides protection to the owner of the mark of the mark by ensuring the exclusive right to use it to identify goods or services, or to authorize another to use it in return for payment;

The period of protection varies, but a trademark can be renewed indefinitely on payment of corresponding fees. Trademark protection is enforced by the courts which in most systems have the authority to block trademark infringement.

Procedures for registering a trade mark or a service mark

The application for registration of a trade mark/or service mark is made by filling a Form known as TM/S 2, which is obtained from the office of registrar of trade/Service mark or from trade and service mark agents;

The application must contain a clear reproduction of the sign filed for registration, including any colours, forms, or three dimensional features;

The application must also contain a list of goods or service to which the sign would apply. The sign must fulfil certain conditions in order to be protected as a trademark or other type of mark;

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The trademark must be distinctive, so that consumers can distinguish it from other products, as well as identify a particular product with it;

It must neither mislead nor deceive customers or violate public order or morality;

The applicant is also required to fill in another form TM/S 3 and submit to the Registrar.

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The applicant should submit application and pay application fees;

Examination of the application is then conducted, whereby if the Registrar accepts the mark, it then proceeds to advertise it for six days;

If the Registrar receives no objection within the six days of advertisement, then he/she issues the Certificate if Registration.

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Finally, the rights applied for cannot be the same as, or similar to, rights already granted to another trademark owner. This may be determined through search and examination by the national office, or by the opposition of third parties who claim similar or identical rights

Categories of Trademarks

Trademark is a general term that includes a service mark, a certification mark, and a collective mark;

A service mark is usually used in the sale or advertising of a service. It is supposed to uniquely identify that service;

A certification mark is used as a verifier or to authenticate the characteristics of a product, a service, or group of people who offer a certain service;

example is the CE mark that indicates that a product complies with safety, health or environmental requirements set by the European Commission

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A collective mark is mainly used by a group of people to indicate membership in an organization or association.

A collective trade mark or collective mark is a trademark owned by an organization (such as an association), whose members use them to identify themselves with a level of quality or accuracy, geographical origin, or other characteristics set by the organization;

Collective trade marks differ from certification marks. The main difference is that collective trade marks may be used by particular members of the organization which owns them, while certification marks may be used by anybody who complies with the standards defined by the owner of the particular certification mark.

Registration of a Trademark

An application for a trademark must contain and present all relevant information. It must also describe the product or service for which the trademark is being sought, the class of goods and services, and the date of first issue of the mark.

Marks are registered only if they meet certain criteria. The core requirement is that the mark must not cause confusion with similar marks used by others

Duration of a Trademark

Generally a valid trademark is protected for 10 years. If an extension is needed it can be granted for another 10 years;

In Tanzania: Registration of Trade and Service Marks has to be renewed after seven years. The renewal runs for ten years and should be renewed again.

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