Republic of the Philippines

Tarlac State University

COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering
Tarlac City

G313 - LIVING IN AN IT ERA

Prepared by
CID L. LAPUZ
G313: Living in an IT Era Module 11: Ethics in IT- Intellectual Property

ETHICS IN IT – INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
• What does the term intellectual property encompass, and why are organizations so
concerned about protecting intellectual property?
• What are the strengths and limitations of using copyrights, patents, and trade
secret laws to protect intellectual property?
• What is plagiarism, and what can be done to combat it?

ACTIVITY:
You have procrastinated too long and now your final paper for your junior
English course is due in just five days—right in the middle of final exam week. The
paper counts for half your grade for the term and would probably take you at least 20
hours to research and write. Your roommate, an English major with a 3.8 GPA, has
suggested two options: He will write an original paper for you for $100, or he will show
you two or three “paper mill” Web sites, from which you can download a paper for less
than $35. You want to do the right thing but writing the paper will take away from the
time you have available to study for your final exam in three other courses. What would
you do? Give your work to your instructor through e-mail.

PROCESSING:
Copyright law protects authored works, such as art, books, film, and music; patent
law protects inventions; and trade secret law helps safeguard information that is critical to
an organization’s success.

ABSTRACTION:
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
Intellectual property is a term used to describe works of the mind—such as art, books,
films, formulas, inventions, music, and processes—that are distinct and owned or
created by a single person or group. Intellectual property is protected through
copyright, patent, and trade secret laws.
Copyright law protects authored works, such as art, books, film, and music.
Patent law protects inventions.
Trade secret law helps safeguard information that is critical to an organization’s success.

COPYRIGHTS
Copyright is the exclusive right to distribute, display, perform, or reproduce an original
work in copies or to prepare derivative works based on the work. Copyright
protection is granted to the creators of “original works of authorship in any
tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they
can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with
the aid of a machine or device.”
Copyright infringement is a violation of the rights secured by the owner of a copyright.
Infringement occurs when someone copies a substantial and material part of
another’s copyrighted work without permission.
Copyright Term
Copyright law guarantees developers the rights to their works for a certain amount
of time.
• For works created after January 1, 1978, copyright protection endures for
the life of the author plus 70 years.
• For works created but not published or registered before January 1, 1978,
the term endures for the life of the author plus 70 years, but in no case
expires earlier than December 31, 2004.
• For works created before 1978 that are still in their original or renewable
term of copyright, the total term was extended to 95 years from the date
the copyright was originally secured.
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G313: Living in an IT Era Module 11: Ethics in IT- Intellectual Property

Eligible Works
The types of work that can be copyrighted include architecture, art, audiovisual
works, choreography, drama, graphics, literature, motion pictures, music, pantomimes,
pictures, sculptures, sound recordings, and other intellectual works. To be eligible for a
copyright, a work must fall within one of the preceding categories, and it must be
original. Copyright law has proven to be extremely flexible in covering new
technologies; thus, software, video games, multimedia works, and Web pages can all be
protected.
Fair Use Doctrine
The fair use doctrine allows portions of copyrighted materials to be used without
permission under certain circumstances.
Four factors to consider when deciding whether a particular use of copyrighted
property is fair and can be allowed without penalty:
• The purpose and character of the use (such as commercial use or nonprofit,
educational purposes)
• The nature of the copyrighted work
• The portion of the copyrighted work used in relation to the work as a whole
• The effect of the use on the value of the copyrighted work
Software Copyright Protection
The use of copyrights to protect computer software raises many complicated
issues of interpretation.
Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property (PRO-IP) Act of
2008 increased trademark and copyright enforcement and substantially increased
penalties for infringement.
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was a multilateral agreement
governing international trade.
World Trade Organization (WTO) is a global organization that deals with rules of
international trade based on WTO agreements that are negotiated and signed by
representatives of the world’s trading nations. The goal of the WTO is to help
producers of goods and services, exporters, and importers conduct their business.
Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, also known as
the TRIPS Agreement, to establish minimum levels of protection that each
government must provide to the intellectual property of all WTO members. This
binding agreement requires member governments to ensure that intellectual
property rights can be enforced under their laws and that penalties for
infringement are tough enough to deter further violations.
Summary of the WTO TRIPS Agreement:
Form of intellectual Key terms of agreement
property
Copyright Computer programs are protected as literary works.
Authors of computer programs and producers of
sound recordings have the right to prohibit the
commercial rental of their works to the public.
Patent Patent protection is available for any invention—
whether a product or process—in all fields of
technology without discrimination, subject to the
normal tests of novelty, inventiveness, and industrial
applicability. It is also required that patents be
available and patent rights enjoyable without
discrimination as to the place of invention and
whether products are imported or locally produced.
Trade secret Trade secrets and other types of undisclosed
information that have commercial value must be
protected against breach of confidence and other acts
that are contrary to honest commercial practices.

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G313: Living in an IT Era Module 11: Ethics in IT- Intellectual Property

However, reasonable steps must have been taken to

keep the information secret.
World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is dedicated to “the use of
intellectual property as a means to stimulate innovation and creativity.” It has 185
member nations and administers 25 international treaties.
WIPO Copyright Treaty provides additional copyright protections to address electronic
media. The treaty ensures that computer programs are protected as literary works
and that the arrangement and selection of material in databases is also protected. It
provides authors with control over the rental and distribution of their work and
prohibits circumvention of any technical measures put in place to protect the
works.
Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) implements two 1996 WIPO treaties: the
WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty.
The act is divided into the following five sections:
• Title I (WIPO Copyright and Performances and Phonograms Treaties
Implementation Act of 1998)
• Title II (Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act)
• Title III (Computer Maintenance Competition Assurance Act)
• Title IV (Miscellaneous provisions)
• Title V (Vessel Hull Design Protection Act)

PATENTS
Patent is a grant of a property right issued by the United States Patent and Trademark
Office (USPTO) to an inventor. A patent permits its owner to exclude the public
from making, using, or selling a protected invention, and it allows for legal action
against violators.
Prior art—the existing body of knowledge available to a person of ordinary skill in the
art
Patent infringement, or the violation of the rights secured by the owner of a patent,
occurs when someone makes unauthorized use of another’s patent.
Leahy-Smith America Invents Act the U.S. patent system changed from a “firstto-
invent” to a “first-inventor-to-file” system effective March 16, 2013. That means
if two people file for a patent application on the same invention at approximately
the same time, the first person to file with the USPTO will receive the patent, not
necessarily the person who actually invented the item first.
Software Patents
Application software, business software, expert systems, and system software
were patented, along with such software processes as compilation routines, editing and
control functions, and operating system techniques. Many patents were granted for
business methods implemented in software.
Cross-Licensing Agreements - each party agrees not to sue the other over patent
infringements.

TRADE SECRETS
Trade secret was defined as business information that represents something of economic
value, has required effort or cost to develop, has some degree of uniqueness or
novelty, is generally unknown to the public, and is kept confidential.
Trade secret laws protect more technology worldwide than patent laws do, in
large part because of the following key advantages:
• There are no time limitations on the protection of trade secrets, as there are
with patents and copyrights.
• There is no need to file an application, make disclosures to any person or
agency, or disclose a trade secret to outsiders to gain protection. Hence, no
filing or application fees are required to protect a trade secret.

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G313: Living in an IT Era Module 11: Ethics in IT- Intellectual Property

• Although patents can be ruled invalid by the courts, meaning that the
affected inventions no longer have patent protection, this risk does not
exist for trade secrets.
Trade Secret Laws
Uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA) was to bring uniformity to all the United
States in the area of trade secret law. The UTSA defines a trade secret as “information,
including a formula, pattern, compilation, program, device, method, technique, or
process, that:
• Derives independent economic value, actual or potential, from not being generally
known to, and not being readily ascertainable by, persons who can obtain
economic value from its disclosure or use, and
• Is the subject of efforts that are reasonable under the circumstances to maintain its
secrecy.
Economic Espionage Act (EEA) of 1996 imposes penalties of up to $10 million
and 15 years in prison for the theft of trade secrets.
Employees and Trade Secrets
Employees are the greatest threat to the loss of company trade secrets—they
might accidentally disclose trade secrets or steal them for monetary gain. Organizations
must educate employees about the importance of maintaining the secrecy of corporate
information. Trade secret information should be labeled clearly as confidential and
should only be accessible by a limited number of people.
Nondisclosure clauses to employment contracts. Thus, departing employees cannot take
copies of computer programs or reveal the details of software owned by the firm.
Noncompete agreement prohibits an employee from working for any competitors for a
period of time, often one to two years.

KEY INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ISSUES

Plagiarism is the act of stealing someone’s ideas or words and passing them off as one’s
own.
Partial list of plagiarism detection services and software
Name of service Web site Provider
iThenticate http://www.ithenticate.com/ iParadigms
Turnitin http://www.turnitin.com/ iParadigms
SafeAssign http://www.safeassign.com/ Blackboard
Glatt Plagiarism http://www.plagiarism.com/ Glatt Plagiarism
Services Services
EVE Plagiarism http://www.canexus.com/eve CaNexus
Detection

The following list shows some of the actions that schools can take to combat student
plagiarism:
• Help students understand what constitutes plagiarism and why they need to cite
sources properly.
• Show students how to document Web pages and materials from online databases.
• Schedule major writing assignments so that portions are due over the course of
the term, thus reducing the likelihood that students will get into a time crunch and
be tempted to plagiarize to meet the deadline.
• Make clear to students that instructors are aware of Internet paper mills.
• Ensure that instructors both educate students about plagiarism detection services
and make students aware that they know how to use these services.
• Incorporate detection software and services into a comprehensive antiplagiarism
program.
Reverse engineering is the process of taking something apart in order to understand it,
build a copy of it, or improve it.
Compiler is a language translator that converts computer program statements expressed
in a source language (such as Java, C, C++, and COBOL) into machine language
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G313: Living in an IT Era Module 11: Ethics in IT- Intellectual Property

(a series of binary codes of 0s and 1s) that the computer can execute. When a
software manufacturer provides a customer with its software, it usually provides
the software in machine-language form. Tools called reverse-engineering
compilers, or decompilers, can read the machine language and produce the source
code.
Open-Source Code is any program whose source code is made available for use or
modification, as users or other developers see fit. The basic premise behind open-
source code is that when many programmers can read, redistribute, and modify a
program’s code, the software improves. Programs with open-source code can be
adapted to meet new needs, and bugs can be rapidly identified and fixed. Open-
source code advocates believe that this process produces better software than the
traditional closed model.
Competitive Intelligence is legally obtained information that is gathered to help a
company gain an advantage over its rivals.
Industrial espionage is the use of illegal means to obtain business information not
available to the general public.
Trademark is a logo, package design, phrase, sound, or word that enables a consumer to
differentiate one company’s products from another’s. Consumers often cannot
examine goods or services to determine their quality or source, so instead they
rely on the labels attached to the products.
Trademark infringement - the law gives the trademark’s owner the right to prevent
others from using the same mark or a confusingly similar mark on a product’s
label.
Cybersquatters register domain names for famous trademarks or company names to
which they have no connection, with the hope that the trademark’s owner will
eventually buy the domain name for a large sum of money.

TRY ON YOUR OWN

1. Explain the concept that an idea cannot be copyrighted, but the expression of an
idea can be, and why this distinction is a key to understanding copyright
protection.

2. Identify and briefly discuss three key advantages that trade secret law has over the
use of patents and copyrights in protecting intellectual property. Are there any
drawbacks with the use of trade secrets to protect intellectual property?

3. What problems can arise in using nondisclosure and noncompete agreements to

protect intellectual property?

REFERENCES:

Kostrewski, B. J., & Oppenheim, C. (1980). Ethics in information science. Journal of

Information Science, 1(5), 277–283. https://doi.org/10.1177/016555157900100505

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