Introduction
Over the last decade, globalization has had numerous effects in the world of trade. Businesses have opened into new frontiers and as such, sales have increased leading to rise in profits. Internet has played a major role in ensuring that the world becomes a global village (Onkvisit and Shaw 134). In effects, international trade has increased in volume.
Global economy is defined as the economy which is based on the economies of the countries of the world (Insitute of International Economics 14). It is based on the opportunities available worldwide. There are many economic activities that are carried out by various state economies in the world. These include all sources of revenue and expenditures by the different countries and includes both private and public economies.
Objectives and structure of Intellectual property
Intellectual property define the extent to which the owners of the property prevent others from any activity that may damage the property. This means that an intellectual property owner reserves the right to benefits derived from the property. The owner therefore, is at his/ her discretion to share to other parties the rights to enjoy the benefits of the intellectual property (Insitute of International Economics 25).
When dealing with intellectual property rights on economies, it is more relevant to look at the intellectual property rights as rules that aim at regulating the competitions in static and dynamic terms rather than looking at intellectual property as legal mechanisms of creating monopolies (Keaveney 208).
Patents
There are several types of intellectual property. The most common intellectual property is Patent. Patent is a provision that gives the owner of the exclusive rights to make, sell, import, and use the name of the product without authorization for a period of time. It is usually the most powerful intellectual property instrument since it provides the owner with the rights to exclusive representation of the product (Swaminathan 154). This takes the form of goods, formulas, designs, and so on.
The main protected subject matter of patent is the new, and non obvious industrial utility inventions. Many patents cover the manufacturing and the agricultural sectors. There are several international agreements that govern patents.
These include Paris convention Patent Cooperation treaty, Budapest treaty, and Strasburg agreement. Examples of main patents in the modern day business world are the apple corporation microchip that is used in the iPhones, Ipads, and Ipods. Others include the Microsoft corporation’s Windows operating system which is used in computers, mobile phones, etc.
The effectiveness of Patents in global markets
The main reason behind promotion of patents as instruments of intellectual property is to promote investment in research and development. Research and development have a positive effect on commercialization and investment in invention. Individuals and organizations will be attracted in innovations if they are assured that their inventions will be safeguarded from any party that seeks to unlawfully benefit from the innovation.
The main challenge that is faced by the organizations trying to protect the patents is the ability to retain the competitive advantage derived from the rights of use of the invention (Assael 107).
When an organization such as Microsoft loses an important employee to Apple corporation or any other technology company such as Dell, the employee goes with information about the company’s products and this processes and he exposes this information to the new employer who is a competitor to the former. This gives the new company an unfair advantage since the information is passed to the competitor which helps the company to match its rival though acquiring of new information.
There is however, a difference between transferring the information about a patent and the actual imitation of a product. For a company to successfully imitate a product, many costs are incurred and this acts as a deterrent to imitator. This is because imitation requires research and development, marketing expenses, and start-up costs for the product being imitated to be fully introduced into the market (Insitute of International Economics 26).
Even though there are several factors that act as deterrent to intellectual property, there is need for enactment of laws that seek to protect the industrial invention. Globalization has brought about international market and economies which have different legal provisions for intellectual property.
Countries such as China have no copyright rule and therefore, pose a threat to investment in invention which lead to intellectual property. This is the main challenge that global economy poses to patents since a firm that invests in research and development cannot be guaranteed of the products safety against imitation in such jurisdictions.
Copyrights
The other important intellectual property is copyright. Copyright protects the rights of creators of artwork, and literary. The most common copyrights are the books and journals written and published by an individual, videos and cinematography works, and the various productions done by media institutions (Verhoef 156).
The main scope of copyright protection is safeguarding the expression of ideas which have been previously done by another party in a manner that replicates what has already been done without seeking an express authority from the original author or acknowledging the source of the ideas though citations and referencing.
It is one of the most violated intellectual properties worldwide. The copyright rules are never followed to the latter because of several reasons. First, because of the nature of the information or the ideas being expressed or because of the complexity of the copyright requirement.
For instance, an individual carrying out an academic research on a particular subject matter may express the thoughts of another researcher without acknowledging the source of the information. This amounts to plagiarism and is considered an intellectual dishonesty (Park and Macinnis 86).
As such, a media institution may copy a production by another media house and air it either on television or on radio. Lack of proper acknowledgement of the rights to the idea and its subsequent expression as own amounts to violation of copyright rules (Insitute of International Economics 32). This means that the economic benefits that are derived from intellectual property are limited to the owners of these products.
The effectiveness of copyrights
The position of copyrights in literary works and artistic work is compared to that of patents in industrial property . The benefits of creative works which are copyrighted are felt in the social, economic, and cultural circles. Globalization which has been spurred by technology has made it hard to enforce and indeed to comply with the copyright rules more so, in the media fraternity.
Global economy has allowed technologies that allow many people to receive satellite signal from any part of the world. While this is seen as an advancement in technology and as such a desirable thing, it must be noted that many receptors of such signals for instance, have the discretion to copy the content they are receiving via satellite. For instance, where one broadcasts content received from another broadcaster without express permission, this amounts to infringement of copyrights.
The other challenge that is presented by global economy and is associated with intellectual property rights with regards to copyrights rules enforcement is the fact that different countries have different rules that govern intellectual property. There are many countries which are not signatories to any of the international treaties that govern copyright and therefore, it is impossible to file a suit against anyone in a country that does not consent to the set treaties. This is a major challenge which has discouraged many artists.
Another challenge that global economy have presented to intellectual property rights protection is the convenience of enforcing the rights. Even in countries where copyright laws have been enacted, the governments have classified the copyright infringement as tort rather than a crime. This means that the owner of a copyright whose copyright has been infringed is the only one who can bring an action to a court of law.
This in essence means that the government does not act as a custodian of the copyrights of a person but rather, provides justice to the infringed only when the infringed brings a legal action towards the person who has infringed the copyrights of a particular product. Global economy therefore does not help international artists or international authors who may have copyrighted their work in their particular country. This means that global economy does provides opportunities and threats to copyright materials in equal measure.
The opportunity for a person to sell the products across the border has been enhanced by global economy. This is also boosted by various trade blocks which are set to increase international trade. The threats come in the fact that the same government that provide a business environment for international trade fail to act as copyright custodians of the various authors and artists.
Trademarks and Geographical Indications
Trademarks protect rights to use a particular unique mark that a product is associated with. Many companies usually have trademarks displayed on their products, or their logos and this allows the consumers to identify with these marks or names. Some most common trademarks are Coca-cola, Pepsi, Starbucks and so on (Keaveney 101). There is no other person outside the ownership of these trademarks who is allowed to use these trademarks on their products.
Geographical indications show a certain geographical location that the product has been made in a certain place. This usually comes along with the features that are associated with that particular region and acts as an advantage to the product being sold. For instance, wines made in Spain are considered of higher quality than wines from any other country in the world. Therefore, Spanish wineries enjoy an advantage over the other competitors from other countries.
Global economy has adversely affected the use of trademarks and geographical indication in the selling of products. The ability of persons to import and export their products has brought about many advantages and disadvantages in equal measure. For instance, a wine made in the United States of America will bear a label reading “made in Spain” with features associated with Spain and as such, deny Spanish wineries the chance to enjoy the advantage and the benefits that come from their geographical indication.
Other examples include clothes which come with tags purporting to be from a particular region such as “made in Germany” yet they are locally manufactured. This in effect, makes the authentic German clothes lose the comparative advantage that is brought about by the geographical indications.
The enforcement of trademarks rights and geographical indications is usually hampered by the vast products presented by the various suppliers in a certain economy. For instance, many products will indicate that they are made in USA just to impress upon the buyer that they are superior to other competitors. Global economy has therefore, allowed such product to freely trade without going through the scrutiny to establish the actual source (Verhoef 210).
Besides, many companies have opened branches in several countries. For instance, Apple has an assembly plant in China due to the cheap labor available in China. This means that apple, which is an American company will sell products which are made in China yet it will indicate that they are made in the USA. This is a challenge to the geographical indications as an instrument of intellectual property. All this is brought about by Global economies.
Conclusion
From the preceding discussion it has been established that intellectual property rights protection is an important aspect of safeguarding investment in research and development. Many government though, lack the strict enforcement of these intellectual property rights since the owners of the rights are left to ensure that their property is not imitated by other parties.
There is therefore, a need for the various governments to tighten the rules that govern intellectual property in the quest to encourage persons to invest in research and development. This would inadvertently have a positive effect on global economy since rights would be regarded and guaranteed across the borders.
Works Cited
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Onkvisit, Sak and John J Shaw. International Marketing Analysis and strategy 4th Ed. New York: Routledge, 2004. Print.
Park, C and D. Macinnis. “Strategic brand concept-image management.” Journal of marketing (1986): 135-45. Print.
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