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What are some of the trends in Intellectual Property protection?

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Recently the general trend in exclusive rights law has been to expand - to cover new types of subject matter such as databases, regulate new categories of activity, increase the duration of individual rights, and remove restrictions and limitations on these rights.

An effect of this trend is an increase in the term of the government-granted rights, and the magnification of the definition of "author" to include corporations as the legitimate creators and owners of works. The invention of work for hire has had the effect of treating a corporation or business owner as the legal author of works created by people while employed.

Another trend has been to increase the number and type of what is claimed as "intellectual property". This has resulted in increasingly broad patents and trademarks - for instance, the attempts to trademark specific phrases, and trademarks can now encompass smells, shapes, colors, words and sounds. The granting of patents for life forms, software innovations and business models expands the initial theory of giving the inventor limited rights to exclude the use of his invention.

Some would argue that all of this expansion abuses an agreement between the public and copyright holders. Since most new ideas borrow from other ideas, it is thought that too many intellectual property laws will lead to the reduced creative output of a society. The expansion of exclusive rights is also presumed to have led to the increase in frivolous law suits between organizations.

Next Page: How has the onset of the electronic age affected Intellectual Property?

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