WORLD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY DAY
Every April 26, we mark World Intellectual Property Day to learn more about the role that intellectual property (IP) rights play in encouraging innovation and creativity. It’s the day the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) sponsors a celebration of World Intellectual Property Day on Capitol Hill.
Laws protecting creative intangible creative products give people and businesses property rights to the information and intellectual goods they create.
What is intellectual property theft?
You know what it is to steal someone’s tangible property such as a car or money. Did you know it’s against the law to take someone’s intangible property such as a song, story, image, or artwork? Imagine you write the song that you performed to a group of friends. One of them records the song and publishes it without giving you credit. They could be guilty of stealing your intellectual property.
Protecting intellectual property rights is difficult. Unlike traditional property, intellectual property is indivisible – an unlimited number of people can “consume” an intellectual good without it being depleted. While a landowner can surround their land with a robust fence and hire armed guards to protect it, a producer of information or an intellectual good can usually do very little to stop their first buyer from replicating it and selling it at a lower price.
One of the most famous intellectual property disputes was in 2000 between the rock band Metallica and the music-sharing website called Napster. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallica_v._Napster,_Inc.
HOW TO OBSERVE
Use #IntellectualPropertyDay or #WorldIPDay to share on social media.
HISTORY
The event was established by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in 2000 to “raise awareness of how patents, copyright, trademarks and designs impact on daily life” and “to celebrate creativity, and the contribution made by creators and innovators to the development of societies across the globe.”
The concept of intellectual property rights goes back to 1883 and 1886 when the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property and the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works provided for the establishment of an “International Bureau.”