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Businesses protect their technology, innovations, and competitive advantages through intellectual property laws. These laws include trademarks, patents, trade secrets, copyrights, and trade know-how. A patent is a license that confers the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling the patented invention for a specified period. A trademark is a symbol legally registered for use as representing a company (Frischtak, 2019). A copyright is a form of a patent for artistic work, while trade secrets or know-how are proprietary information that gives a business a competitive advantage over its competitors. Because innovation is the backbone of modern business mainstays, intellectual property should be identified, documented, and registered with the relevant authorities.
In modern economies, the most dynamic and innovative sector is the information, communication, and technology segment. Though the digital economy opens up unprecedented business opportunities, there are always challenges in the context of intellectual property rules (Husakovska et al., 2020). This is because for business transactions to take place seamlessly, individual parties have to share private and sometimes confidential information to enable various processes to take place. These processes include but are not limited to, payments, dispatch of goods, and so on. Because the primary goal of business people is to make profits, some of them engage in immoral business practices and trade confidential information shared with them in the course of doing business for handsome pay. This leads to huge losses experienced by the owners of the traded business secrets and sometimes a complete loss of business (Uphoff, 2018). Their only way back to profitability is usually through the justice system, which is severely harmed in many third-world countries, even though these are the countries with the largest markets for the information and communication technology industry.
Peer-to-peer networks enable people to swap files around the world, which is relatively dangerous as it is poorly regulated and little or no future references are recorded in case of a dispute arising. In recent times, peer-to-peer networking has taken on skyrocketing popularity in the digital space as it can share copyrighted content without being censored (Stack and Writer, 2020). Businesses have been able to share copyrighted videos and music for commercial purposes without the permission of the owners.
Most consumers of videos and music nowadays listen to and watch these products from copyrighted sources either knowingly or unknowingly. The reasons behind the rapid growth in the popularity of peer-to-peer networks are the cheap costs associated with their setup and the absence of configuration. Their Windows servers are also paid once as compared to other networks where the Windows servers have to be paid periodically, making them very cheap to maintain (Roy et al., 2019). Peer-to-peer networks are also very reliable as the computers are not dependent on a centralized system, so they cannot be easily affected if part of the network fails. However, it is generally easy to set up this network, which requires some specialized software. It also enjoys a significant window for scalability. The network requires no administrator as everyone on the network is allowed to manage their system.
Intellectual property rules are vital in peer-to-peer networks to make sure that no illegal business takes place on such platforms. The rules should also ensure that it is not profitable to engage in illegal businesses such as the commercialization of copyrighted content. On the other hand, there should be incentives to encourage peer-to-peer networks to reduce the cost of doing business in the digital space as long as the law is followed to the letter. If the law were well crafted to encourage peer-to-peer networks, businesses would boom and there would be a huge positive impact on economies the world over (Lee et al., 2020). A very good example of a peer-to-peer network is the team viewer platform, which is mainly used in the information technology sectors and accounting sectors. The team viewer application has largely reduced the variable overhead costs of production significantly in the accounting and audit industries by reducing the time and travel costs traditionally associated with the sector to almost zero. In recent times, an auditor can audit a companys system while comfortably sitting in his office. Previously, auditors had to move into their clients offices for complete system audits and forensics, which is now a thing of the past thanks to the invention of the team viewer platform.
Peer-to-peer networks have also made things easier and more efficient in institutions, as well as reduced time wastage. Workers can now work seamlessly without walking around in the office to do various formal duties such as printing and reviewing (Gossen et al., 2019). By saving time, peer-to-peer networks can reduce the prices of end products significantly, as time is one of the most expensive variable costs. Another good example of a peer-to-peer network is the Torrent platform, which allows a computer to upload a file through a network on the internet. Other computers can be able to access the file uploaded either wholly or in small chunks.
In Torrent, one can only access a file and not download it. This makes it hard for the users to download the files, mostly books, and then copy and paste them for sharing with other potential customers who would have instead subscribed to the Torrent platform. This shows how prudent use of intellectual property rules and regulations can make things easy and, at the same time, profitable for content owners. According to Maurius (2018), there can be a mutually beneficial relationship between intellectual property and information communication technology. This can only be possible if countries all over the world adopt relevant legislation to govern the digital space (Bauwens et al., 2019). Technology knows no boundaries, and hence, physical policing and enforcement of any law enacted to govern online business processes may not realize significant progress. Governments should therefore prioritize better ways of informing their citizenry about the advantages of following the law concerning intellectual property rules and regulations.
Education on such laws on the advantages, both direct and indirect, to individuals would make them very keen on following these regulations. Billions of dollars and jobs are being lost all over the world due to the infringement of intellectual property rights that undermine a wide variety of industries. Social media platforms, on the other hand, have recently allowed for highly collaborative sharing behaviors among their users. This has led to the bleaching of security protocols of various multibillion-dollar investments after their trade secrets are exposed maliciously by angry employees.
Businesses have realized that traditional advertising methods such as television, newspapers, and radio are not as well recognized as social media platforms nowadays. This explains the recent storming of the online space by multinationals having sponsored posts on social media such as Facebook and Twitter (Piscicelli et al., 2019). This platform enables advertisers to see different opinions of their target potential customers as well as their likes. This fact shows that internet users are not at full reconciliation with intellectual property owners, despite the intellectual property owners interest in promoting their products. They also want to control how the process is conducted, which is not practically possible.
However, to their advantage, various social media providers have come up with ways of controlling what is shared on their platforms, hence creating some sense of security for the users of these platforms who are in business. A very good example is Twitter, which does not allow a person to post offensive language towards another person on the platform, despite how irritated they feel towards the person or business (Hawlitschek et al., 2018). Twitter has the right to deactivate the account of an individual who violates the privacy and peace of others for malicious reasons.
In the application digital space, intellectual property rules have impacted business in the software market such that one cannot share an application through peer-to-peer networks and install it on his or her computer successfully (Wirtiz et al., 2019). The applications are developed in such a way that they require activation keys to get installed and work efficiently thereby locking out any people who may want to copy them.
Intellectual property rights are protected because of the following advantages
They help protect a persons business from competitors; through intellectual property rights protection, a business can put its competitors at bay and hence enjoy a competitive advantage over them (Kumar et al., 2020). A very good example of such a case is the m-Pesa money transfer system, discovered and patented in Kenya.
They can be sold or licensed to other companies who wish to use them to make some profits, hence providing an important revenue stream. A business that owns protected intellectual property has been allowed by the law to sell such rights to willing buyers who pay a loyalty to be allowed to use such inventions for commercial purposes (Paggi et al., 2018). They offer customers new products that no other producer has been able to produce. A company that has intellectual property can provide very unique products to its customers, giving them the satisfaction they cannot find elsewhere.
They form part of marketing strategies; protected intellectual property forms part of marketing strategies, giving the company a competitive advantage over others. Protected intellectual property, such as the Coca-Cola Companys trademarks, is a critical branding strategy. Protected intellectual properties can be used as security for loans. A company that has intellectual properties can use them as collateral to secure a loan from any financial institution all over the world, giving them competitive advantages over other companies.
According to Kuhzady et al. (2020, P. 12), the risk of an invention or innovation getting stolen has been very high in recent times. Intellectual property theft and infringement have become the order of the day in the digitized era and have even caused the failure of various businesses that would have grown into commercial giants.
Companies have to document and register their innovations and inventions, while customers have to look for genuine products from protected, sure, and assured goods. Protected intellectual properties can improve the productivity of a business in the export market. The business can use these designs and logos to advertise the company in foreign countries. The business can also get a franchise in these countries, thus increasing its overall productivity.
Intellectual property rights have also brought about the importance of working hard among young people rather than depending on other peoples work for gain. Those new to the world of business are assured of the security of their ideas. An idea is just a thought until it is put into production through commercialization (Sousa et al., 2019). Hence, if an individual feels insecure about disclosing his or her idea due to the fear of the idea being stolen, that particular idea may never benefit the owner or society. But with the existence of intellectual property rights, one dares to disclose his or her thoughts, having first identified them, documented them, and then registered them. Hence, intellectual property rights help in the growth of new business ventures.
In conclusion, around the world, people have embraced respect for all property rights that are known to be registered and enforceable. A very good example is the Apple incorporation that has protected its brand of products and operating systems. This has enabled Apple to remain a top producer of mobile phones and computers all over the world. Their products are accepted world-over with ease as long as the customer can ascertain that the particular product is genuine. This has given the company a competitive advantage over near challengers such as Samsung, who also produce relatively good quality devices but still havent been able to convince the market that their products cannot be imitated.
Reference List
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