Dan McGuire

I have to thank one of my collegues, Sandra McKenzie for bringing the plight of the black-footed ferrets to my attention.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/94543/page/1

After reading this article, i am keeping my on those liitle weasels!!

Patent

Invent a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.

Sounds like a good plan – a quick search on Google for ‘better mousetrap’ returns just over 200,000 hits http://www.google.com/search?q=better+mouse+trap&rls=com.microsoft:en-ca:IE-SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7

So what do you do if your idea really does result in something useful? We’ve already discussed the concept of ownership of ideas, the idea itself is yours as long as you keep it to yourself. If you want to do something with that idea, chances are you’ll be looking at a patent to identify it as yours.

Patent is the legal protection afforded to inventions and innovations. Patent applies to things, or more specifically the way those things are made or work. A Patent provides the patent owner with a monopoly over the manufacture and sale of the device described by the patent. Patents may also be applied to methods of manufacturing or creating objects, Recently patents have been used to protect more esoteric things such as ‘business practices’

Obtaining a patent is not a simple process. In some cases, the legal fees paid to patent a device may be the largest portion of the development costs. Another challenge for patent owners – they may be considered an asset by the tax man, resulting in annual costs to maintain them.

There is a fundamental exchange between society and the inventor when a patent is granted. When applying for a patent, the applicant must reveal the details of how a works and how it is made. Once the application is filed this information becomes part of the public record. This means that for any patented device the general public, including any potential competitors, are able to look up exactly how that device works. Once the term of the patent has expired, other manufacturers are free to use the information to manufacture competing devices.

For an entertaining look at patents, have a look at these web sites:

Totally absurd Patents: http://www.totallyabsurd.com/

Crazy Patents: http://www.crazypatents.com/

Could an instructional method be patented?

If so what would need to be done to do so?

Types of Intellectual Property

When we look at physical property, we can all recognize the variety of ‘properties’. Real Estate is substantially different from the stuff found in the kitchen ‘junk drawer’. Intellectual Property has a similar variety of types, differentiated by what is protected, how it is protected and how it ‘becomes’ property.

Ideas We all own our ideas. As long as those ideas are kept in my head, no one but myself can do anything with them. Of course it is hard to do anything if we keep those ideas locked up.

Patents are legal registrations that protect useful objects. Patents apply to such things as the can opener in the junk drawer, the electronics in your DVD player.

Trademarks for some businesses, trademarks may be the most valuable ‘property’ they posses. A trademark is a unique name, symbol or combination of the two that identifies a company and its products. McDonalds may refer to the neighbor’s house – but most of us recognize McDonalds as the name of a restaurant because, combined with the ‘golden arches’ it has been registered as a trademark.

Trade Secret Does anyone know the formulae for Coca-Cola? I assume the people making Coca-Cola do, not many people outside the company do though. That formula is protected as a ‘trade secret’. There are legal consequences if an employee of Coca-Cola were to disclose that secret.

Copyright is probably the largest area of intellectual property. Copyright protects the expression of creative ideas. Prose, Poetry, Lyrics, Music, Dance, Paintings, and Sculptures – essentially anything that can be described as creative is protected by copyright. Not many people hold a patent, own a trademark or harbor a trade secret – but a very large number of people own the copyright on something!

Can anyone think of another example of Intellectual Property?

What about information?

Well, things are always interesting in the world of copyright.

Ever since Napster, copyright has been a popular news item, and the latest outbreak hits a very popular service - hand's up if you have played 'Scrabulous' on facebook!

http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/006312.html

Quick poll - how many feel Hasboro and Mattel are justified with their request? Why?

Ownership and Property

Property – anything you own

Ownership – possession of property

Obviously property and ownership are dependant on the each other

Often people will point to the value of property, or the existence of legal documents defining property as the key defining factors.

Some of my most valuable property includes photos of my children, or artwork they created when they were very young, it really has no monetary value, no legal documentation of ownership but it is definitely ‘mine’.

Obviously a good definition of property must include things that have no monetary value or legal documentation.

Does property have to be a physical good? The artwork and photos I described would certainly be considered ‘tangible’ goods.

Other valuable property would be ‘money’ – money is something that is easy to understand – we can touch it, feel it, it states right on it how much it is worth. Money is easy to define as ‘property’. What about the money we have in a bank account? That money isn’t really sitting there in a vault, it is really just a notation on an account….an agreement that if we walk into the bank and ask for that money, the bank will go out and find bits of paper that add up to that amount. Money is, for the most part, an example of intangible property. As much as we may dislike the mad scramble to get more money, I doubt many people would desire a world where there was no ownership of money.

Perhaps the idea of property could be defined by the physical ability to control it? A car for example is protected by locks – we can control the car because we have a key.

I have a friend who works for an insurance company assessing the effectivness of those locks. His job is basically to ‘steal’ cars all day long. He can open and start just about any car in seconds – locks are completely ineffective against his knowledge. Does this mean that he ‘owns’ every car? Does this in any way diminish my ownership of my car?

If you own land you have control over who can access the land – easy to do for a small tract, but next to impossible for a large area. What about people who simply walk over your land – very hard to control that, technically as the owner you should be able to but the reality is not so.

I have come to the conclusion that the fundamental element defining property and ownership is the recognition of others that any thing is ‘owned’ by someone. My property is mine because everyone else acknowledges and accepts that it is mine.

For a more thorough description of property, have a look at wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property

Dan