Introduction
Companies lose billions of dollars in violation of intellectual property rights. These have been witnessed in Microsoft’s cases, for instance, in 2010, they lost over $20 billion due to piracy in China alone. Intellectual property is therefore very important for ensuring the survival of multinational companies. The United States government has reformed its bankruptcy policies to weed out debtors who had previously depended on bankruptcy to evade paying their debts. This paper will explore the relevance of modules studied in real life situations (Feeney, 2010, p. 5).
Intellectual property
The module started by introducing intellectual property and relating its significance to companies in terms of ownership of their creations as well as the benefits that come from such creations. Intellectual property refers to the development exclusive rights guarding a number of creations by organizations or individuals. For instance, when Microsoft develops an operating system, they get exclusive rights on the software, thus restricting any form of piracy, copy or use of the same idea to produce the identical products. However, this has been violated in most cases , with most Chinese businesses opting to buy the cheap pirated copies of Microsoft operating system. This has contributed to revenue loss by the Microsoft company as reports estimate that over $ 20 billion are lost every year (Yahoo! Inc., 2011, p. 1).
Why intellectual property matters
The module then proceeded to explore the importance of intellectual property. These include value added per employee and generation of funds as incentives for creation of more products. Most multinational corporations face infringement of their intellectual property rights by pirates in developing countries such as China, Vietnam as well as India, among others. When such vices are allowed to continue, operations in multinational companies can halt. This is why intellectual property forms the basis of investments and innovations. Among other things, China, for example, produce identical automobiles from companies such as General Motors and electronics. This is quite detrimental to the development of other creations as profits are greatly reduced. Intellectual property rights are very essential for innovations and survival of multinational companies (Cross, & Miller, 2008, p. 68).
Bankruptcy and its relation to Debtors and Creditors
The module explores the links between debtors and creditors. Before granting credits, vendors are expected to conduct extensive screening of their potential debtor to ascertain their repayment capabilities as well as good moral risks. Examples from the United States show an overwhelming experience in relating Debts, which ensures informed applications only. Most multinational companies that granted credits during recession are suffering as they could not recoup their investment and had to receive a bailout from the federal government to remain in business. In addition, the American population has always used bankruptcy to evade paying off their debts. However, this has changed since the Congress reformed laws regulating bankruptcy. Bankruptcy has been made more difficult to come by, forcing people to make informed decisions before applying for credits. Healthcare costs burden the American population and this has greatly contributed to high levels of debts. The module went further to determine functions of agents who are charged with responsibility of conducting businesses transactions on behalf of companies (Cross, & Miller, 2008, p. 68).
Conclusion
Intellectual property rights have to be protected to ensure survival of multinational companies. If this is not done, funds and incentives for innovative research as well as investments on new creations will decline. In addition, since businesses have gone global, intellectual property should be monitored over the web to ascertain more ways of reducing its spread. Screening of debtors should also be done to enhance determination of repayment ability. More ways should also be explored to help in noting debtors with bad moral risks (PhysOrg, 2011, p. 1).
Reference List
Cross, F.B., & Miller, R.L. (2008). The legal environment of business: Text and cases – ethical, regulatory, global, and e-commerce issues. (7th ed.). West: Cincinnati.
Feeney, J.N. (2010). The road out of debt : bankruptcy and other solutions to your financial problems. Hoboken, NJ : Wiley.
PhysOrg. (2011). Microsoft chief says China piracy very costly. PHYSORG.com. Web.
Yahoo! Inc. (2011). China piracy cost software industry $20bn in 2010. Yahoo! News Network. Web.