Intellectual Property
“Intellectual property” (IP) is a generic legal term for patents, copyrights, and trademarks, all of which provide legal rights to protect ideas, the expression of ideas, and the inventors of such ideas (1 ). Intellectual property has many of the characte
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15 Intellectual Property William M. Brown 1. Introduction “Intellectual property” (IP) is a generic legal term for patents, copyrights, and trademarks, all of which provide legal rights to protect ideas, the expression of ideas, and the inventors of such ideas (1). Intellectual property has many of the characteristics of real property (houses, buildings, and so forth); intellectual property can be bought, sold, assigned, and licensed. Additionally, the owner of IP can prevent “trespass” on his property by others, though in IP this is referred to as infringement. A patent provides legal protection for a new invention, that is, an application of a new idea, discovery, or concept that is useful. Copyright provides legal protection from copying for any creative work (e.g., works of art, literature [fiction or nonfiction], music, lyrics, photographs), as well as business and scientific publications, computer software, and compilations of information. A trademark provides rights to use symbols, particular words, logos, or other markings that indicate the source of a product or service. A further method of benefitting from an invention is simply to keep it secret, rather than to disclose it; the most famous trade secret of all time is the formula for Coca-Cola, still a closely guarded secret to this day (2,3). Trade secrets have the advantage that they never expire, but special measures are required to ensure the continued secrecy, and should it be violated, there is little legal protection for the owner (2,3). Intellectual property may seem like a strange topic for a chapter in a science book intended for practicing scientists, but intellectual property impinges on almost everything scientists do, as the reader will realize by the end of this chapter. Furthermore, as scientists are paid to come up with ideas and aspire to publish their work, the protection of ideas and of written works especially should be of interest and concern to all. From: Methods in Molecular Medicine, Vol. 40: Diagnostic and Therapeutic Antibodies Edited by: A. J. T. George and C. E. Urch © Humana Press Inc., Totowa, NJ
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As a scientist, it is difficult to avoid intellectual property. Write a paper or review (copyright is “created” automatically once your ideas are fixed in a permanent medium; it is not even necessary [though it is advisable] to add the copyright sign [©] and the author’s name), sign a copyright transfer form when submitting a paper or review to a journal, go to the library to copy a paper from a journal (read the copyright notice in the next journal you copy from, or perhaps the copyright notice attached to the photocopier in the library), open and use a software package (software is protectable under copyright law, and a copyright agreement was probably printed on the envelope from which you removed the disk), or use the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) process (PCR is covered by two US patents [4,5], now assigned to Roche [6–9]) and you have entered the lawyer’s realm of intellectual property. A further area
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