Debate paper in intellectual properties - Assignment Example

In the absence of these protection laws, individual’s original ideas would be plagiarized and exploited by unethical participants in a given economic environment (Gollin 23). Therefore, the concept of intellectual property proves advantageous in numerous ways including; Intellectual property in form of a patent protects an individual’s or a company’s original knowledge from duplication by competitors and other unethical parties. Fortunately, the government issues patent owners with the sole right to use an underlying intellectual property for a specified period of time (Tavani and Spinello 41).

Currently, advancement in science and technology leads to a corresponding increase in inventions and related knowledge. These new scientific information and technological designs could offer great benefits to business organizations upon application. Undeniably, an inventor or researcher responsible for development of a new piece of information may have invested intensively not only in terms of finances but also in labor hours. In this context, duplication of intellectual property without the owner’s permission would amount to an instance of economic exploitation.

Therefore, intellectual property rights are instrumental in preventing exploitation from competitors. In March 2014, Samsung and Apple Inc ended a patent infringement dispute in court. Allegedly, Samsung duplicated the ’slide to unlock’ feature of Galaxy Nexus smart phones without permission from the feature’s inventor, Apple Inc. Consequently, Samsung paid Apple $120 million in damages. In this context, existence of intellectual property rights prevented further exploitation of Apple’s patented information by its competitor.

In another case, SanDisk is seeking to prevent exploitation of its flash memory cards by Apple Inc. Aside from being the plaintiff in Samsung vs. Apple case; Apple Inc also infringes patents of other competitors (Reed 01). As of September 2014, Apple Inc was being sued