Today, American companies face a disturbing trend: small companies find themselves involved in the frequency of legal disputes. These independent companies, many of which are small-scale operations that survive on a meager budget, are faced with defending their intellectual property – from company names to the products they produce and sell. The legal struggle for intellectual property has had a different impact on the public, and they will always pay for the court case for those who lack the available counter-attacks.
In order to understand the current battle, you must first understand what intellectual property is. Intellectual property is defined as "property derived from intellectual or intellectual work; specific concepts, inventions, trade secrets, processes, procedures, data, formulas, patents, copyrights, trademarks or applications, rights or registrations related to it" he said . [1] What does this mean in the sense of a layman? Intellectual property is a business-worthy project, such as a new wallet design that can be protected by patents, trademarks or copyright laws.
Many business owners in the United States were surprised to find that intellectual property originated in the Constitution [Article 1, paragraph 8 [8]], which stipulated that Congress should have the power to promote scientific progress and useful art by protecting authors and inventors for a limited time. Gain the exclusive rights of the words and discoveries they respect."
It seems that even the founding fathers believe that we should have the right to own and use our investment exclusively, and the right to receive returns by granting permission to use others.
Legal protection
Today, there are three ways to protect intellectual property. These methods include patents, copyrights and trademarks.
* Patent protection "exclusive rights to processes, designs or new inventions". [3]
* Trademark protection "name, symbol or other device that identifies the product". [4]
* Copyright protector "literary, musical, dramatic or artistic work". [5]
The cost of developing these protection methods may be too high. A good example of the cost of protecting your work is the price tag attached to the patent, which ranges in price from about $400 to $1,000 or more. According to a law firm, the actual cost of patenting an easily described thing is about $2,000, and more complex things can cost as much as $10,000. [6]
Although the cost of filing a trademark is usually low, the process can still pay more than $1,000 to $1,500 for each application. [7]
The average start-up investment in the arts and crafts business is $9,000. [8] When you consider the city, county, state, and federal level requirements for a business license, the amount of basic office supplies paid, the cost of generating a website or other marketing materials, and the cost of ordering necessities in order to produce the final product, there is no budget Leave enough room to apply for these most basic protections in accordance with the law.
This story is more than just the cost of registering a patent. Every patent can be challenged, and many patents can lead to a huge number of transactions in trial cases. As reported by a law firm, the average cost of a patent litigation through trial may range from $500,000 to nearly $2,000,000 - this amount applies only to one of the ingredients! Since patent attorneys charge about $200 to $500 an hour, these fees can rise rapidly because of the high-profile cases that require a lot of work by litigators. [9]
The importance of intellectual property
People often underestimate the importance of intellectual property rights to businesses. The media is full of examples of intellectual property competition, ranging from suspicious replication to apparent theft.
We can look at the recent media headlines to get a deeper understanding of the problem at hand.
Earlier this year, Nike issued a formal apology to "the iconic Washington DC member, small threat and lead singer Ian MacKaye's Dischord record member", creating a travel poster ' album cover inspired by Minor Threat. "10 Why Nike, Inc. Apologize? MTV reports," this poster, for Nike's Major Threat Skateboard Demo Tour [to promote its latest SB shoe collection], not only misappropriated the Minor Threat logo, but the band 1981 The same name EP of the year and the complete record of 1988. "[10] The source has not published any further information on the subject.
Another example of IP infringement can be found in the case of Margaret Nicole and Abercrombie & Fitch in Manhattan.
According to the New York Times, Abercrombie & Fitch Co. is selling a handbag that is the same as that made by Margaret Nicole in Manhattan. Margaret Nicole of Manhattan owner Nicole Dreyfuss said, "In two weeks, Abercrombie Lawyer, Colucci & Umans Colucci of New York law firm agreed to pull the wallet and reach a settlement. "[11]
Defend store
However, these stories are not common. When the designs of most small businesses are stolen or their lives are threatened by lawsuits, they cannot fight big companies. Instead, they were forced to hand over the results of their hard work to a large company simply because they could not afford to protect themselves.
The epitome of this example will be the current lawsuit against small online retailer Virgin Threads, LLC.
Virgin Threads, LLC was founded in August 2004 and is currently being sued by Virgin Enterprises. As one media reported, "Virgin Enterprises, a group company of Richard Branson, tried to prevent others from using the word "Virgin" in the name and domain name." [12]
The complaint file submitted in this federal law indicates that Virgin Enterprises believes that the maintainer claims to "register the domain names VIRGINTHREADS.COM, VIRGINFASHION.COM, VIRGINCIGAR.COM, VIRGINPUBLISHING.COM and I-VIRGIN.COM in a malicious way" from VEL. The VIRGIN logo has a specific intent to mislead consumers. "[13]
Jason Yang, owner of Virgin Thread Co., said to his current situation, "I plan to register with Virgin Threads soon, but in November 2004, I was charged and my lawyer advised me not to try to register them. Trademark. Named after the lawsuit."
When asked if he would like to refer to a well-known name as Virgin, Mr. Yang replied: "No, I never thought Virgin Threads had any similarities with Virgin Enterprises.
Although Mr. Yang continued to crack down on attempts to close his website, the cost of the battle continued to rise. Therefore, there is a new department called "Legal Fund" on the Virgin Threads website. The unique design sold in this section helps fund the defense of Virgin Enterprises, and part of each sale is used to maintain a threaded legal defense fund.
Despite recent headlines and media concerns, most consumer markets are still unaware of these litigations and the dangerous trends they represent. Many of those who are aware of it are unaware of the real impact of these court battles.
If the current bias is allowed to remain uncontrolled, it will put consumers in jeopardy - staring at the amazing face of monopoly. The rising cost of protecting and defending intellectual property, as well as the cost of preventing violations, provide an extremely harsh environment for small businesses to survive, and it is almost impossible to achieve growth.
Because each type of business has a disproportionate amount of resources, only one infringement allegation can bankrupt many so-called "little guys." The ability of large companies to eliminate competition from the beginning directly led to the dominant position of the market.
The dominance of market space [or more clearly described as monopoly] has a direct impact on consumers with limited choice and higher prices, even the famous 18th century British economist Adam Smith Declared: "The price of a monopoly can be the highest in every situation."
Small business loss
In the case of monopoly, consumers are not limited to their choice of products, and they are easily forced to pay high prices for imported goods.
Many large companies now outsource their labor to other countries. As reported by media sources, "Forrester Research estimates that by 2015, there will be 3.3 million jobs and $136 billion in wages in the US that will not only flow to India, but also to China, Russia, Pakistan and Vietnam." 14
Can we afford to lose the loss of a small company? Here, take a closer look at the situation of small companies [with no more than 500 employees] brought to the United States:
small company
* represents more than 99.7% of employers.
* Employ more than half of private sector employees
* Pay 44.5% of total US private wages.
* Create 60% to 80% of net new jobs each year.
* Create more than 50% of non-farmers' gross domestic product [GDP].
* 53% of families and 3% of franchise. [15]
As these small companies close down, the local economy is affected. Disagreements caused by these closures may have a chain reaction, a higher unemployment rate, and an area of life that people may never doubt.
A study claims that "the social cost of unemployment" can affect everything from mental health to social security costs such as social security. [16]
Obviously, as a society, we need to take measures to prevent the despicable...
Orignal From: Road roller effect
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