Intellectual Property Rights and Open Access Initiatives
In the wake of the global epidemic, the conflict between open access and traditional IP rights is becoming a significant problem. The essence of IPR and open access is that they are opposed to one another, to the point that approving one is destructive to the other. Let’s break down and find a balance between them.
IPR registration primarily consists of safeguarding one’s intellectual work for innovations and creative works, indicating its origin, and providing the owner unlimited control over that particular product for a certain length of time.
Whereas the fundamental goal of most open-access efforts is to help people and organizations overcome barriers. And to aid individuals and organizations in overcoming legal barriers, sharing and developing knowledge, and addressing global concerns.
The effort encourages open access sharing and gives information on how to distribute information while avoiding prejudice against any individual or group of individuals. It would also stimulate fresher ideas and solutions to society’s broader issues, as well as provide a fair playing field for all entrepreneurs and people to compete on an equal footing with giant corporations with more resources.
As a result, these ideas are intended to both promote and enable access to individuals who may not otherwise be able to afford it.
The basics of open access, as can be shown, contravene one of the most fundamental concepts of intellectual property rights, which is to safeguard intellectual property. The rationale for the parties wanting legal protection for their IP is mostly commercial profit. The patent helps provide a framework to share protected work without letting go of any commercial benefits like product sales and licensing royalties. For instance, a person can patent his scientific tool and then sell the same to a huge corporation.
As an outcome, the firm may create it in big quantities at a lesser cost, lowering the cost to the customer. For all parties concerned, this is a triple-win situation. The patent owner makes money from the invention, the business sells the item to the consumer, and the customer gets a cheaper product. Copyrights are also for anyone who wants to safeguard their work, such as literary works or movies, while simultaneously benefiting from IP protection.
A large portion of this labor is shown in front of the public to get advantages. Without copyright protection, the author’s work might be duplicated or exploited without the originator receiving any recompense.
Furthermore, a trademark serves as a means of distinguishing one company’s goods or services from those of another. It also allows an owner to restrict other parties from using his or her trademark. A trademark’s main purpose is to provide information about a product’s origin and excellence to help consumers make better purchasing decisions.
It also gives a single owner monopolistic power because a large number of registered marks means fewer marks are accessible for others to use in the public domain.
As a result, in addition to symbolism, a trademark may be extremely valuable to a firm, causing some to incorporate it into their value. Trademarks are perpetually protected as long as they are in use and the owner can defend them. It protects companies from impersonators who want to profit by creating uncertainty in the marketplace by attempting to imitate an already recognized brand.
Striking a balance between traditional intellectual property rights and open access projects may be difficult, because artists may contemplate the consequences of doing something for the greater good, but they are also likely to consider how profitable their invention may be. However, recently this convergence has been seen in the Open COVID Pledge where the world is coming together to fight the pandemic.
The goal of the committee is to urge organizations all around the globe to share their intellectual property so that we can all combat COVID together. This vow will eventually assist in the defeat of COVID-19 and will benefit humanity as a whole. Participating in this promise may also benefit businesses by generating goodwill and resulting in future commercial benefits.
Tags: open access initiatives, intellectual rights, ipr law, intellectual property rights law, ip rights, intellectual property rights, intellectual property protection, ipr act
