Legal Protections

Legal Protections
Name
University

Legal Protections
Abstract
Due to the advancement in technology, the e-commerce and e-business have grown substantially in last few decades. The growth in the industry has given birth to security problems and threats. Or paper will discuss the different types of and legal protections for intellectual property, further emphasizing on the legal issues of e-business to include intellectual property, privacy, ethics, and security.
Legal Protections for Intellectual Property
In many countries separate detailed laws have been formed to ensure the protection of intellectual property. However broadly, the types of mechanism in place for the protection of intellectual property are:
Patent
Patent is a protection that provides only one right. It is the right to exclude others from doing what is already been claimed in the patent. In order to patent an invention it should be different, unobvious and useful. Any breach of the patent right could be challenged in the court anywhere in the world.
Copyrights
Copyrights protect the works of authorship, such as writings, music, and works of art that have been tangibly expressed. Copyright is governed by a regulatory framework which allows the use of the copyright invention through licensing by the owner.
Trademarks
Trademarks give protection to words, names, symbols, sounds, or colors that distinguish goods and services. Trademarks, unlike patents, can be renewed forever as long as they are being used in business. Trademark infringement results in various types of penalties which can be quite severe.
Trade secrets
A trade secret is information that companies keep secret to give them an advantage over their competitors. Any attempt to obtain the trade secrets by improper means or the misappropriation of any information obtained through improper means can be challenged in the court of law (Besen & Raskind, 1991).
Issues and protection in E-Business
In principle, all laws that apply to traditional commerce apply to business conducted via the Internet. Laws governing business name registration, consumer protection, advertising, importing or exporting, product safety, product standards, intellectual property and liability and so on, apply to e-business. Due to increasing use of e-commerce by ...