Chapter 11 Intellectual Property Law Analysis

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In week 10 of spring semester we discussed chapter 11’s Intellectual Property Law. “Property establishes a relationship of legal exclusion between an owner and other people regarding limited resources.” In this chapter, we learn that the Constitution allows Congress “to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors to the exclusive Right to their respective writings and discoveries.”
In layman’s terms, this means Congress allows you to have ideas and creations while also safeguarding your idea from others who want to use it. While the Constitution does give Congress the ability to protect your ideas you do have to follow certain steps in order to “protect the time, effort, and money spent in developing knowledge in order to transform it into valuable intangible assets.” If these steps needed are not taken, your information may be “captured” by others who want to use the idea. Another piece of information discussed in the chapter is infringement, which is taking or using any form of intellectual property. Essentially, infringement is stealing property from another person or party. This leads into trade secrets. A trade secret is having knowledge or information of one’s ideas that could have “economic value from not being generally known or has been the subject of reasonable efforts by the owner to maintain secrecy.” If it becomes known that someone knows a trade secret then a judge can issue what is called an injunction, which is an “order to do something or to refrain from doing something.” This injunction keeps those who have infringed a trade secret to cease from telling the secret or putting it to use.
The next thing discussed in the chapter is the pat...

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...pple Inc. While this amount awarded to Apple Inc. was much less than they were going for it was also significantly lower than what Judge Koh vacated after the previous trial; that number being 400 million. This case was a very large win for Apple Inc. and their power in the electronics industry. This ruling was also a huge statement made in terms of patent infringement. As Colleen Allen said in an interview, “If we didn't award Apple much, we're saying it's OK to infringe patents”
To conclude, Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics went to U.S. District Court due to Apple Inc.’s claim that Samsung Electronics had infringed on some of their technology patents used in the iPhone and iPad. Apple Inc.’s zoom patent was then invalidated by the USPTO. Judge Koh then ruled in favor of Apple Inc. and ordered Samsung Electronics to pay 290 million dollars to Apple Inc.

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