Who would think that creativity would be something that most people would try to protect. Intellectual property is something that most people would over look because there is not a need for these laws but in reality it creates innovation. There must be a reason, over than to protect ideas, for these laws to be in place and why it is such an importance. There are many intellectual properties including patents, copyrights, trade secrets, and trademarks. Each have a different purpose but pose to serve the same idea, to protect something new that can be easily stolen. The attached reading states “the components of the intellectual property system are designed to maintain the incentives for inventors to create and publicly disclose new products in a free market environment” (4)

Patents give “rights to creators of innovations that are useful, novel, and nonobvious” (4). These rights assists the creators with their new inventions by giving them time to make the patent better but even this has its limits. This patent only gives the creator up to 14 years to perfect the inventions or make it as near perfect as it can.

An intellectual right that is “easier to obtain” is the copyright (5). The copyrights are instilled to serve as protection to ideas and creative thoughts. This is one of the most important intellectual property and probably one of the ones that is most heard of. This “prevents others from copying creative expressions that are fixed in tangible media, so that artists will have sufficient incentives to share their talents” (5). This inspires the imagination to grow and to twist original ideas, such as when there are legends or are rotted from stories from long ago, and make it their own.

Trade secrets is a new intellectual idea that new to me and most certainly one that is widely known but because of its origin name. (6) A trade secret helps keep information secret. Just like Mr. Crabs on SpongeBob, he had a trade secret and it is the formula to make the Crabby Patty. No one has it and it is essential for his business to grow and to have the most original burger under the sea.

Trademarks are something that associated with a company or an idea. An example of a trademark is the big ‘M’ of McDonalds. Nobody will ever have that big ‘M’ in front of the restaurant because of the trademark. The ‘M’ is associated with that particular restaurant, that is how trademarks work, but whenever anyone sees the sign they immediately acknowledge and recognize that it belongs to McDonalds.

These laws have been in place for quite some time not but as we innovate as a society, the laws need to grow with us, not just leave them like they used to be once upon a time. We need to expand the laws and have them applicable to the technology that is growing every single day but it has not been the easiest feat. It really puts the first amendment to the test. It only brings up issues in the amendment because “the first amendment prohibits laws and governmental actions that abridge the freedom of speech” (15). It is difficult when going against the first amendment but it is essential to protect ideas to create innovation, the foundation of the nation.

Burgunder, Lee B. Legal Aspects of Managing Technology. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning, 2011. 4-14. Print.