Intellectual Property and Its Leadership Challenges

 Defining Intellectual Property

     Intellectual property has many facets. Stanford legal department (https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/introduction/intellectual-property-laws/) offers a few insights into what is covered in the intellectual property domain. Copyright, Patent laws, and trademark registration often fall into the category of intellectual property. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/white-collar-crime/piracy-ip-theft) also elaborates on intellectual property definition by also including proprietary products, processes, entertainment media, and software. Though there can be many definitions of what encompasses intellectual property, of note is how it is protected. The online legal site HG.org, established by Lex Mundi, provides guidance on how intellectual property is protected by the constitution and how Congress can regulate trade and establish agencies to protect commerce. Of note, is how agencies, such as the U.S. Patent Office, and the U.S. Copyright Office. The HG website, https://www.hg.org/intell.html, offers additional insight on the legal foundation and types of intellectual property crimes.

Threats to Intellectual Property

Individual  Perspective

     Many threats exist to intellectual property. In today’s interconnected society, the ability of an individual or nation-state to steal or replicate goods is increasing. Often, the news focuses on the intellectual property theft by China. This may be a common threat that individuals want to demonize. However, the truth is any country that doesn’t have laws to protect or define intellectual property offers an opportunity for nefarious activities. Traveling throughout the Middle East and the Pacific, I have witnessed multiple occasions of fake DVDs, knock-off Rolexes, near perfect Louis-Vuitton purses, and fake iPods & iPhones. If an individual purchases these items, it is a way that the theft is perpetuated and fuels illicit networks.  

     The ability of the information on the internet offers the individuals the ability to find, collect, and exploit many forms of media. Perhaps one of the first true cases defining intellectual property in reference to online music was Napster. An online review of https://us.napster.com/about and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napster offers two different insights on the company. From its founding in 2000, Napster was a peer to peer networked that facilitated the free transfer of MP3 music files. This was great for the consumer, but the service provided no royalties or benefits to the artist. It wasn’t until artists sued Napster that the company ceased sharing free files and progressed to an online paid subscription service.

     An unknown threat that many researchers may not consider is their rights during the research or journal publication process. A review of an article from the Royal society highlights this emerging concern (https://royalsociety.org/journals/ethics-policies/plagiarism-copyright-ip/). The society highlights how their peer review will protect the authors work from theft of their research concepts or future ideas. Another concern for researchers is how their data can be stolen by their grantors. MIT recently terminated their partnership with China’s Huawei and ZTE due to their products supporting espionage efforts (https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/04/mit-terminates-funding-and-research-ties-with-chinas-huawei-and-zte.html).

How to Protect Intellectual Property

     With the ability of a determined nemesis to steal and profit from someone else’s ideas, considerations must be taken on how to protect self-interests. Of note, this can be approached from an individual and government level. From an individual perspective, Forbes offers ten insights on how to protect intellectual property

In a July 2018 Article, experts from  the  Forbes Technology Council suggested the following methods (https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2018/07/23/10-effective-ways-to-protect-your-intellectual-property/#417e47e032e1 ):

1. Don't File Patents

The most uncommon way to protect intellectual property is not to file patents. Filing patents provides the recipe of how a product or service can be created. Once a recipe is published, one can create a similar product with workarounds to not violate the intellectual property rights. The second method is to standardize the idea with a standards association, so that others are blocked from creating such an idea. - Naresh Soni, Tsunami ARVR

2. Run Lean And Fast

Innovation in the tech sector will always be prone to plagiarism. To some extent, that's what drives innovation's evolutionary jumps in such quick succession. Having relentless innovation cycles keeps your competitors constantly catching up. That does require your company to run like an Olympic runner — lean and fast. - Daniel Hindi, BuildFire

3. Separate Teams

Our engineering teams are separated geographically, and we make a point that none of these teams have access to the complete product. In order to undermine the security and sanctity of our product, several of these teams would need to work together to steal the total product. Separation of duties is a basic tenet of information security, and we have to practice what we preach. -Tim Maliyil, AlertBoot

4. Open-Source It

It may seem counterintuitive, but one of the best ways to build a competitive advantage is to open-source your technology and tap into a broad community of developers. This way, your company can focus on the added value on top of the technology stack that remains proprietary, and can execute with speed and agility. - Winnie Cheng, Io-Tahoe LLC

5. Avoid Joint Ownership

Make sure to avoid joint ownership of intellectual property at all costs. Joint ownership creates problems later on that could make it difficult to protect, hurting all parties involved. - Chalmers Brown, Due

6. Get Exact-Match Domains

If you can, one of the best intellectual property securement methods for trademarks (that you actually own) is an exact-match domain name. While a costlier objective in the short run, the windfall of benefits in the long run is unrivaled. - Michael Gargiulo, VPN.com

7. Safeguard With Strong Access Control

Store manuscripts, creations and all ideas in a safe place that’s protected by an identity and access-management solution. With 81% of breaches being due to compromised credentials, it’s essential to store intellectual property on a system that uses adaptive authentication with risk analysis, or at least two-factor authentication. Passwords alone are obsolete. - Keith Graham,secureauth.com

8. Get Strong Non-Disclosure Agreements

Get assistance with creating well-written non-disclosure agreements. Also, look at any other agreements you use in your business to make sure they cover your intellectual property. These could include employment agreements, licenses, and sales contracts. - Muhammed Othman, Calendar

9. Keep It Quiet And Out Of Sight

Classic ways of protecting IP often involve patenting or copyrighting works and techniques, and vigorously defending them in court. Modern techniques involve using Digital Rights Management systems. A now somewhat uncommon way that is still effective is to simply keep things secret and limit exposure to the trade secrets that make up the IP, and design the system to keep them hidden. - Chris Kirby, Voices.com

10. Publish It Widely With Attribution

While patents require being the "first to file" in the U.S. these days — and that's still the best way to protect your non-trade secret IP — another common way to ensure that your IP is seen as yours is to publish and reference it widely, always ensuring that your company's name is attributed to where it is mentioned. The more you are seen online with your IP, the more support your patents have. -David Murray, Doctor.com

Government Perspective

     Although the above mentioned methods seem counter intuitive to the normal practices of registering ideas with patent and copyright offices, it maybe indicative of a future trend to be open and publish academic, Ted Talk, or other social media methods to highlight emerging propitiatory ideas or concepts.

     From a government perspective, patent and copyright registration allows for the federal enforcement of violations. The FBI currently has many ongoing operations to deter intellectual property theft. Often classified as “white collar crime”, the FBI has efforts to deter theft ( https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/white-collar-crime/piracy-ip-theft ) in coordination with the NIPRCC (https://www.iprcenter.gov/). 

Below are a few of the ongoing initiatives from their website:

Operation Chain Reaction

Operation Chain Reaction, an initiative by the NIPRCC, is a comprehensive effort that targets counterfeit goods entering the supply chains of the Department of Defense (DoD) and other U.S. government agencies. Some examples of recent investigations involving counterfeit products entering the federal supply chain include:

-       The purchase of counterfeit Cisco converters by an individual, who intended to sell them to the DoD for use by the Marine Corps to transmit troop movements, rely intelligence and maintain security for a military base.

-       An investigation uncovered a global procurement and distribution network based in California that provided counterfeit integrated circuits to various governmental agencies, including the military and prime DoD contractors. 

Operation Apothecary

Operation Apothecary, targets the growing problem of Internet crime. Particular emphasis is placed on the use of the Internet as the primary means of communication and ordering of pharmaceuticals.

-       Apothecary provides for a two-pronged attack on pharmaceutical smuggling:detecting violations at the border; and providing opportunities for investigations and enforcement actions against traffickers of counterfeit drugs and medical devices.

-       Apothecary identifies and dismantles foreign organizations that sell and ship pharmaceuticals that are illegally imported into the U.S., and detects, seizes, and forfeits commercial shipments of illegally imported pharmaceuticals.

Operation Engine Newity

A third NIPRCC initiative, Operation Engine Newity, focuses on countering the threat of counterfeit automotive, aerospace, rail, and heavy industry related components that are illegally imported and distributed throughout the United States.

-       These counterfeit components represent a grave threat to public safety due to the critical nature of transportation-related applications and can include such components as airbags, brake pads, steering rods, and bearings.

Future Trends

     I am still pondering the future trends concerning intellectual property. As we move towards a more digital service based society, there will be a rise in the need to protect and profit from intellectual property. The idea of being transparent and getting ideas widely into the global market maybe a future trend, but an inner voice harkens to a world where corporations will move to closed loop networks and other forms of secrecy to protect their ideas.