Professor Kamil Idris identifies the four main types of intellectual property are patents, trade secrets, trademarks, and copyrights. These laws have been enacted by governments of nations and other organizations to provide individuals or companies with exclusive usage rights for their own creations and inventions.
The absence of such protections would create an environment where the small-scale entrepreneur would continue to see innovative ideas of their own “stolen” by other companies and then be forced to compete with knock-off versions of their own products. Intellectual property laws are designed to encourage innovative developments from businesses and entrepreneurs while promoting economic growth.
The issue of intellectual property rights is so important that it is the primary reason that the United States and China are embroiled in a potential trade war.
Legal experts such as Idris do not see this hotly contested subject losing its importance any time soon and feel that laws protecting the creations of business entities will continue to play an important role in the world of business.
One particular area of businesses where the issue of intellectual property rights is taking on particular importance is technology. One example is Amazon and other companies attempting to call “dibs” on drones that deliver products to customers and are able to discern body language from humans and understand words that are spoken. While Amazon is not necessarily close to developing this level of drone technology, owning the rights to these ideas could be worth billions in profits.
For the European Union, the Unified Patent Court is the Bureau of the government that has the responsibility of protecting that are filed by businesses operating in their jurisdiction. The proper registration of an individual or businesses ideas before the competition has a chance to is vital to any potential success in the European business world.
Professor Idris explains that despite the vital nature of having business ideas secured through the use of the patent process it is a complicated endeavor to have ideas registered across the European Union.
The European Patent Office is entrusted with overseeing this process and sometimes struggles with the translation of the 24 different languages used by individuals under their umbrella.