What Is Intellectual Property? Why Is It Called "intellectual" Property? Why Is Intellectual Property Such an Important Issue for Entrepreneurial Firms?

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Importance of trademarks

Trademarks are important to entrepreneurs in various ways: it helps in building a unique identity and brand identification that will distinguish the firm and their products from others; and also helps in building and sustaining a goodwill that is capable of earning the company more patronage. Trademarks motivate companies to provide a consistent level of quality, helping the consumer to decide whether to purchase a desirable product or service again or to avoid an undesirable one. (6) And finally, it can be used in the advertising and promotion of firms’ tangible products and intangible services.

Part D

What is a copyright? What is protected by a copyright?

A copyright is a form of intellectual property protection that grants to the owner of a work of authorship the legal right to determine how the work is used and to obtain the economic benefits from the work. (7) Copyright protection gives the copyright holder the exclusive right to copy the work, modify it, distribute, perform and display the work publicly.

Copyright laws protect original works of authorship that are fixed in a tangible form of expression. Ideas or concepts do not have copyright protection; copyright protects the expression of the idea, but not the ideas themselves. A work does not necessarily need to have artistic merit to be eligible for copyright protection. As a result, things such as operating manuals and sales brochures are eligible for copyright protection.

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References

- A. I. Poltorak and P. J. Lerner, Essential of Intellectual Property: Law, Economics, and Strategy (New York: Wiley & Sons, 2011)

- B. R. Barringer and R. D. Ireland, Entrepreneurship: Successfully Launching New Ventures (Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall, 2012).

- U. Kaiser, A primer in Entrepreneurship– Institute for Strategy and Business Economics, University of Zurich ISU 2008 3 I (ONLINE) – retrieved July 7, 2015, from http://www.business.uzh.ch/professorships/entrepreneurship/teaching/past/hs08/primer/Kap12primerentrepreneuruka.pdf

- General Information About 35 U.S.C. 161 Plant Patents (ONLINE) - retrieved July 7, 2015, http://www.uspto.gov/patents-getting-started/patent-basics/types-patent-applications/general-information-about-35-usc-161

- M. Kasdan, Article: Intellectual property for startups (ONLINE) – retrieved July 7, 2015, from http://www.ey.com/GL/en/Services/Strategic-Growth-Markets/Center-for-Entrepreneurship-and-Innovation---Intellectual-property-for-startups

- Lombard & Geliebter (2009); Article: Reasons Why Trademarks Are Important to Your Business (ONLINE) – retrieved July 7, 2015, http://www.lgtrademark.com/wp-content/themes/nextclient/media/Reasons_Why_Trademarks_Are_Important_to_Your_Business.pdf

- Unknown author, Business ideas: Can you protect them? (ONLINE) – retrieved July 7, 2015, from http://www.marsdd.com/mars-library/business-ideas-as-intellectual-property-ip-can-you-protect-them/