Intellectual Property and Theft of Ideas

With the advent in claims made by the music industry that internet file sharing of their songs is theft and infringes intellectual property, the question arises as to how far theft of intellectual property extends - does an idea constitute intellectual property?

In an article from The Conversation, Adam Vogel outlines the university research ethics view on ideas poaching when unprotected research papers are presented for comment and approval.

Obviously, as he outlines, in an ideal world, all knowledge and ideas would be shared with equal attribution to those responsible for their genesis. In the current situation, the capacity for the creation and execution of new research determines an individual’s ability to put food on the table - this is to an extent, true for those researchers on the fellowship track.

There have been a myriad of lawsuits in the recent months with Samsung and Apple battling it out over their various smartphone applications and functions; and large drug companies claiming patents over the invention of cures for diseases like breast cancer.

But, where does the line need to be drawn and when can we say a patent or a trademark is not viable and against public policy.

Some examples of patents granted recently include:

• There was a company called Cendant that asserted Amazon had violated patent monopoly on recommending books to customers.

• There was an attempt by Dustin Stamper, who was President Bush's top economist, to get a patent on a system and method for a multistate tax analysis.

• Facebook was sued by someone who had a patent on a "system for creating a community of users with common interests to interact in."

• Carfax has a patent on "a method for perusing selected vehicles having a clean title history."

• There is a method patent covering swinging on the swing sideways.

All that can be illustrated is that intellectual property law especially in relation to the digital age is in desperate need for reform and this has been highlighted recently by the inquiry by the Australian Law Reform Commission into Copyright and the Digital Economy. This is now awaiting a second round of submissions in 2013.

To read more see article in The Guardian.

Stay current, contact TimeBase for a free trial of our Intellectual Property Point-in-Time product for Australian Legislation.