Intellectual Property for Entrepreneurial Business Venture Essay

Intellectual Property for Entrepreneurial Business Venture - Essay Example The related rights of copyright consist of the rights of performing artists for their performances, producers of phonograms, and those of broadcasters' programmes in either radio or television. The rights granted in all types of intellectual property are essentially negative. A patent refers to the exclusive right granted for an invention that either provides a novel means of doing, or a new technical solution to a problem. Patents provides protection for a limited period, generally 20 years. The protection granted to patent owners includes that another person cannot make commercial reproduction, use, distribution and sale of the invention without the consent of the patent owner. To enforce these rights, patent owners have to enforce it in court to prevent or enjoin patent infringement. Corollary to this, a court may declare a patent invalid when challenged. A patent owner is given the right to decide who can use the patented invention for the period granted in the patent and ahs the right to permit or license third parties to use, sell, distribute or market the invention. Upon expiration of a patent, the protection consequently ends, with the invention becoming a part of the public domain. The patent owner does not anymore have exclusive rights to the p atented invention and now available for commercial exploitation. To secure a patent, the first step is to file the application for patent that should contain the name or title of the invention and an indication of the technical field. The application must also state the background and description of the invention specific enough for an individual of average understanding in the field could subsequently use to reproduce the invention. The application must be accompanied by visual representations of the invention like diagrams, plans or drawings describe the invention better and must contain various "claims" or the necessary information that determines the extent of protection applied. To be patentable, the invention must satisfy the following conditions: (1) it must be of practical use; (2) it must be novel, that is, new characteristic in the field not yet known in the body of existing knowledge called "prior art"; (3) shows an inventive step not knowable by someone in the field with average knowledge; and (4) the invention must be accepted as "patentable" law. Hence, mathematical methods, scientific theories, discoveries of natural substances, commercial methods, plant or animal varieties, or methods for medical treatment are not patentable. A patent is usually granted by a national patent office or by a regional office for several countries. Under a regional application, applicant requests protection in several countries but each country decides on the application. The Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) provides for the system of filing a single international patent application with similar effect as national applications. An applicant files one application only. Thus, the joint business venture may file for patent application for the technology that combines the Osyter card's radio frequency identification (RFID) technology and the debit cards EFTPOS system together. A