Reflection On The Intellectual Property Rights Course
My understanding of IPR before the course
Although I used to read news or watch financial TV shows that had mentioned intellectual property rights (IPR) many times before this course, my understanding of this term is still limited. The first time I learned about this term is when I was still a middle school student and there was a textbook about global history where IPR was emphasized by some important global meetings such as the Plaza Agreement that was reached by a number of developed countries in the 1990s. My understanding of this term was that IP is related to the rights of the owners of some inventions or trademarks. In my opinion, this means that the users excluding the owner should first get licensed and pay a certain amount of fees for using relevant IPs. One example that can be used to prove my old understanding of IPR is the franchising organization where the franchisees have to pay the franchiser a great amount of money for using its trademark, equipment and even its management services. As a student from China where IPR is not well protected, the focus of my initial understanding of IPR is about the rights of the owners of some inventions such as equipment and products since there is usually a IP number granted for them in the process of sales and marketing. And personally I did not know that there is usually a time limit for IPR especially for some medicine products.
More importantly, I did not know the great importance of the protection of IPR in business practices since plagiarizing intellectual property is so common in my home country. One example is the IPR of music where they can be downloaded for free in China especially in the previous years. In recent years, large music platforms such as QQ Music have started to restrict such plagiarism behaviours and users have to buy membership in order to download online music. Still, they can be accessed and downloaded for free on some small and medium platforms. So, like other people in China, my knowledge and understanding of IPR was limited and even did not realize its great importance in business practices and modern economic activities. This kind of limited understanding is not only about the knowledge of the term such as its coverage but also its features and application in reality. Then, this course offered me an opportunity to learn related knowledge that allows me to obtain an in-depth understanding of IP.
The most part of IPR law that surprised me
After learning IPR law, I think the most part that surprised me is the wide coverage of IP that is much larger that range that I perceived in old days. As shown by the lecture, IPR refers to the exclusive rights enjoyed by citizens or legal persons for the intellectual products they produce in intellectual creation or innovation activities. As explained by the law, such IPR mainly include copyrights of invention patents, trademarks, and industrial designs in the areas of industrial property rights, natural sciences, social sciences, and works of literature, music, drama, painting, sculpture, photography, and film photography. As seen from this kind of description, IPR is an intangible property right and it means the achievement of intellectual creative labour, and it is a right enjoyed by intellectual workers. This right is called personal rights and property rights, and it can be seen as a kind of moral rights and economic rights. As seen from the aspect of moral right, it means the inseparability of rights from those who have achieved intellectual achievements, and the legal reflection of personal relationships. For example, the author’s right to sign on his work, or the right to publish or modify his work, is a moral right. As seen for the aspect of property right, it means that after the intellectual achievement is legally recognized, the right holder can use these intellectual achievements to obtain compensation and this is also known as economic rights, which is the foundation for its commercialization.
In a broad sense, IP includes copyrights, patents, trademarks and others. As seen from the object of protection, it include commercial marks such as works, inventions, trademarks, unpublished information, new plant varieties, and various types of knowledge products and information products like integrated circuits. The narrow sense of IP refers to the traditional intellectual property that consists of three parts including the right to work (including neighbouring rights), patents, and trademark rights and the objects involved are works, inventions, and trademarks.
One term that surprised me is the neighbouring rights, which refer to the exclusive rights of the propagator of the work to the labour results produced in the process of disseminating the works, also known as the rights of the propagator or the rights related to the copyright. This helps me solve a lot of puzzles in understanding what happed in business practice such as news about the writer of a science fiction sued a film producer on claims about not obtaining the agreement of the author for producing a film that is based on the contents of that fiction. This is an example of apply such law of IPR in the protection of the neighbouring rights of the writer. As can be seen from what reflected above that the learning of this law has greatly enhanced my understanding of the range of IPR. The implication is that the public should respect all the hard work of others, which I think is the key driver for innovation and creation in a normal society. This explains why people in my country are not enthusiastic at innovation since their potential achievements are not protected by the law or some of them do not even know that their kinds of work can be protected by IPR since they do not have a good understanding of the range of IPR.
Also, the wide range of IPR defined by the law implies that people can apply for IP in a number of areas and it is defined by the law whether they have IPR or not. This kind of wide range of the law also can encourage such registration activities if the public is fully aware of it.
How I will use my learning in this course and the suggestions for its improvement
In general, my learning in this course can be applied in personal, social and business practices from three aspects. First of all, I will only download movies, music and any online books in future with by making payments to show my respect to the authors or creators. After understanding the great importance of IPR in reality and the existence of such laws especially in those developed countries like Singapore, the respect and implementation of such legal requirements become the first move for me to apply what I learned from this course. My opinion is that if students with good knowledge of IPR law cannot respect and follow the relevant legal requirements, there is no great hope for the rest of society especially those who are not well educated to respect the IPR law. This is a move that I think will affect the people all round as well and together I think this can benefit the increasing awareness of IPR in my home country i.e. Mainland China.
In addition, I think my knowledge of IPR learned from this course can help my future employers in dealing with such related issues in business practices. As a master student who wants to pursue a career in the areas of business management, IPR is an issue that cannot be avoided in my future career path. With the knowledge learned from this course, it can benefit me in my career development process from two aspects. On the first hand, the knowledge of good IPR laws and the commercialization of IP can give me a advantage in finding a good job and be successful in my future job potions in the areas of business management since it is essential for business today and in the future especially for large companies that I want to participate.
On the other hand, I can help my future employers prevent the violation of any IPR law terms especially when I supervise its daily business operation, which can not only saves costs but also maintain good brand reputation for the employer in the long run.Last but not least, good knowledge of IPR law, IP management and strategies can benefit my family business as well. Currently, my parents run a medium-sized manufacturing company with exports to the US market and the main product is clothing. In the old days, IP was not emphasized by them and thus some of the clothing design was usually plagiarised by competitors especially those from Mainland China with exports to the same market. This is because of the fact that my parents did not have good knowledge of IP and thought it would be very costly to implement legal actions.
With my knowledge learned from this course, I can help them apply for IP registration (including clothing design and trademarks) in both Mainland China and the United States and negotiate with the competitors about the risks of such plagiarism activities, which I think is good for my parents' company to save costs and be more competitive in the global market. Overall, this course is well structured with sufficient knowledge of IPR law and IP management and exploration of IP etc. As seen from this aspect, the knowledge offered by the textbook is comprehensive. And the lectures are well told by the lecturer.
Still, I have two suggestions for the course that I thought it could be improved. The first one is that the case study applied in the course can be more up to date since some of them are old cases. And these updated cases can be more relevant to people' daily lives since they the knowledge can be more easily understood by the students. The second recommendation is that more visual materials about IPR such as TV shows and documentaries can be added in the course to make the lectures more diversified. And these kinds of materials are usually easier for students to understand.
My opinions and suggestions on IP law
IP law offers the owners of some inventions and works to protect their own rights and it have some advantages, which can be summarized from three aspects. First of all, it offers a competitive advantage for the owners of patents to similar business on the market, which is essential for boosting innovation of a society. The law articulates the rights of the owners of patents and thus offers them exclusive power of using their own innovation make money on the market that can not be enjoyed by the followers in a limited period of time. In addition, it is good for businesses to deal with disputes associated with IP since the law has set standards that have to be followed by the relevant parties.
Last but not least, it is the basis for IP commercialization since it is good for business to finance its IP related products and based on which to enhance its company value from a certain perspective. However, there are still some limitations or disadvantages of IP law. At first, the need for registration of IP bring additional costs for the owners of patents or workers, which leads to increased financial burden for individuals and small businesses. This is because of the fact that the filing of IP requires specific professionals and it takes time. At the same time, since there is a limited period time for IP for the owner, the quality of products may be affected since they usually not willing to put resources and time into them when they notice that their IPRs are not absolute. Thus, in order to overcome such limitations, there is a need for simplifying the process of filing IP and define the period of valid IP for the best interests of the owner associated with the features of different industry that the business is within.
