[d@DCC] What is "intellectual property"?

[Kristofer Coward]

On Thu, Sep 26, 2002 at 10:22:59AM -0700, Chris Brand wrote:
> >"Intellectual property" refers to a bundle of rights. The ticket 
> >analogy may be accurate as regards to copyright, but would not, for 
> >example, be accurate as regards other types of intellectual property, 
> >such as trademarks or software licences. I would be careful in the 
> >use of analogies, as that is what got us here in the first place, 
> >viz. "intellectual property".
> 
> I thought of this last night. The ticket analogy is indeed great for
> copyright and patents, but doesn't work for trademarks, at least.

That's because trademarks exist for consumer protection, not for the
benefit of the holder of the trademark (as much as recent domain
disputes may have made us forget that). My gf's parents run a company
that operates in countries where trademark laws are poorly enforced,
and have had problems where they recieved complaints about the poor
service recieved from people operating under their business name, only
to realise that those people were not associated at all with their
business.

That trademarks exist for consumer protection is also why they can be
lost if not defended (and can sometimes even be successfully defended
without being registered IIRC).

-- 
Kristofer Coward				http://unripe.melon.org/
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