The impact of legislation on businesses - EduqasIntellectual property
The government use legislation to regulate businesses鈥 behaviour and prevent them from exploiting people. Laws protect consumers who buy from businesses and workers employed by businesses.
Intellectual property (IP) refers to intangibleWithout a physical presence and therefore unable to be touched.assetA business asset is an item of value owned by a company. or creations owned, created or designed by an individual. Protecting intellectual property is important to ensure that work is not stolen or copied, and that the right people are rewarded for their work. Anyone who creates an original piece of work usually wants to be recognised for their work and to be able to make money from it.
Copyright
From the moment you create an original piece of work, you become the legal copyright holder.
Copyright gives the creators of media the rights to control how media is used and distributed. Music, books, video, images and software can all be covered by copyright. Copying material that is subject to copyright without permission is illegal.
Patent
A patent is used to protect ownership of an invention or new process. This can stop rivals from copying the idea for a set number of years.
Patents can apply to many different aspects of a device. With smartphones, patents apply to the user interface, the design of the software and each physical component inside the device. As components get smaller, each individual part of a new product is usually patented separately.
With vacuum cleaners for example a business may patent an exclusive part of the design, which improves the performance over their competitor's products. Companies are not keen to share profits. They are likely to sue each other if they can prove that their intellectual property (IP) has been infringed.
Trademarks
A trademark is the protection of a logo, phrase or business name that a company can register with the government to make their company distinctive. Trademarks can be expensive, but businesses are willing to invest a lot of money to protect their brand name and logo. Most large companies trademark their logo and name.