Article Review: E-Business and Intellectual Property

The Article Review By: Efrain Gonzalez Jr. Law/421 March 10, 2013 Chuck Ward In this article review the author will present an article that specifically related to e-business and intellectual property. The information provided in this review will identify different types of and legal protections for intellectual property. The information describes, provide, and analyze the legal issues of e-business to include intellectual property, privacy, ethics, and security. The first piece of information that will be discussed is various types of legal protections for intellectual property.

There are several different types of legal protection for intellectual property, and the primary legal mechanisms for protection of intellectual property are: the patent which only provides one right to disallow others from do things which are allowed in the patent. An example would be, any process being performed using genetic engineering in the United States required a license from Stanford University to US Patent 4,237,244 (the Cohen-Boyer patent) but this expired on December 11, 1997.

The copyright would be the next protection that gives authors of published work the ability to be protected by the law of copyright infringement. The protection for copyright is 70 currently 70 years but it also much narrower than the patents because what is actually written down, and derivative works are written down. An example of copyright protection would be a published books, electronic publishing, software, and diagnostic questionnaires. Trademarks would be another protection because the trademarks protect words, names, symbols, sounds, or colors that separate, and analyzes goods and services.

The difference with trademarks is that they can be renewed forever, and patents cannot, but as long as it represents and is used for business purposes only. Know-hows are basically the technical knowledge and experience to do certain things, but the difference with know-hows is that there not protected under the law, but it does hold a significance value if one doesn’t understand or isn’t able to practice an invention. Trade secrets are very important and protected because these are secrets among companies who compete with other organizations and the secrets give them an upper hand against the competitors.

Trade secrets protect biological materials and software. Masks works is the last protected and it basically is a series of related images whether fixed or encoded. Masks works are similar in protection under the law to copyright. The legal issues of e-business are the rise of internet and global marketing because small business owners do not want to hear about intellectual property right because they feel that it is a waste of time and money, and those two are very important for small business owners.

The privacy and security issues of the e- business can start at viruses getting through the computer which can hurt a small business because the customers may not feel comfortable and secure about shopping online due to viruses, spams and emails being sent out to customers and business associates, and the viruses can end up shutting down the organization system through the computer.

Hackers can get into financial statements, and different business accounts and personal client information that can lead to major problems like identity theft and a firewall would have to be put in place to block unauthorized individuals access to business information. Loss of important data can also be a major issue for a small business due to privacy and security scandals. A back up protocol would have to be put in place so that the company can regain access to important information, and loss business files needed to effectively run the organization.

Ethics also plays a major role in many different issues related to the e business because security and privacy are the number one ethical issues of the e business even though companies are aware of hackers and are protecting the information, the issue is maintain the online security at all times due to expense and new technology allow hackers to become more advanced at hacking through the internet.

The privacy issue plays a big part with the e business because the digital storage and back up files leaves behind important information that can be used against the organization, the employees of the organization, the customers of it, and the potential investors that invest in the company. In conclusion this article review has when into detail and explained the different types of laws that fall under protection of the e business, and the legal protection provided within the laws. The review has described and provided examples of each, analyzed the legal issues of e-business to include intellectual property, privacy, ethics, and security.

This review has provided every aspect of the law and legal protection under the e business along with the many different issue it faces on a daily basis. References Retrieve from: http://www. nytimes. com/2009/08/06/business/smallbusiness/06guide. html? _r=0 Retrieved from https://ecampus. phoenix. edu/content/eBookLibrary2/content/DownloadList. aspx? assetMetaId=975fc4-9d85-4785-93f4-867c4ee6986d&assetDataId=ba00b38d-2bb3-465c-b189-549fe15eedf4 http://www. ebusinesscounsel. com/clients/e-commerce-a-internet-law