Protection of Intellectual Property (IP) on the Internet
Gurpreet Singh, Internet Lawyer
Internet poses a great threat to the protection of Intellectual Property Rights. This includes Copyright violations, Trade Mark abuses and social issues while you are expanding your portfolio online.
The significant interest of the businesses depends upon the protection, enforcement and management of Intellectual Property portfolio online. The most common types of Intellectual Property violations in an online environment are trade mark violations, which include domain names, meta tags, keyword marketing amongst others.
The copyright violations include right to reproduce and display of logos, symbols, art works, advertising materials, manuals and other creative works.
The trade secrets are the most crucial type of Intellectual Property that requires protection in an online environment, which includes confidential information such as secret formulas and know how.
There are several ways by which the trade mark rights of the Intellectual Property owners can be violated on the internet. Few examples can be:
(i) Third party registrations of well-known trade mark as domain name;
(ii) Registration of domain name by the licensees and / or franchises of the owner of the trade mark without prior consent of the licensor and / or franchisor;
(iii) Use of trade mark in the competitor websites in the meta tags and hidden text of the website.
(iv) Use of the trade marks by the competitors to drive traffic to his own website by using logos, marks etc.
(v) By indulging into keyword marketing abuse to display the competitors’ advertisements in the sponsored list of the search results while searching for a particular mark or name on the internet.
The Copyright protection and enforcement is most challenging job for the Copyright owner while expanding or having presence on the internet. The very nature of the internet is freeness and the same is highly misused by the violators because of lack of diligence and actions being taken by the owners of the Intellectual Property against such offenders. For example, music or video film is circulated on the internet without any fee after being copied from the internal sources of the companies sometime even before the release of the same to the public. A common question that hits the mind of a person is that how a person is able to earn by giving a file for free?
There can be various hidden things which a common man cannot think of behind this business methodology. The offender can be earning through:
(a) Advertising such as AdSense by Google;
(b) by collecting sensitive information from user;
(c) by spreading worms or viruses with the pirated file in order to capture and track the user’s behavior on the internet and ultimately using that sensitive information to perform illegal activities online.
The social issue that involves linking and framing may also be of great concern for the Intellectual Property owners. The linking occurs with one website provides a link or connection to the Intellectual Property owner’s website. The problem arises when the link points to an internal page of the Intellectual Property owner’s website besides taking him directly to the home page thereby avoid content, notices, advertisements and other special deals which a website may contain on its main home page.
Framing occurs with the owner’s website is displayed within a window or frame of another website. This may adversely affect the size, format of the owner’s website and also dilutes the name of the website by providing a frame on the top of the window and confuse the user so as to the provider of the content as the framer’s website to owner’s website.
The Intellectual Property owners can tackle many of the above problems by taking the following steps:
1. Managing the Trademark Portfolio on the Internet:
Intellectual Property owners should register its trade mark in each and every jurisdiction, wherever he offers or plan to offer services around the world. The Intellectual Property owners should also register the domain names relating to its business activities in all the gTLDs at the first instance, which includes .com, .net., .info, .org, .tel, .biz, .mobi, .tv amongst others. At the second stage the owner should also register and maintain the country specific domain names (ccTLDs) in the jurisdictions, where the offers or plan to offer its services. For instance: .in for India, .ca for Canada, .us for United States, .au for Australia, .uk for United Kingdom and .pk for Pakistan and so on.
2. Maintaining Terms of Use and Privacy Policies of the Website:
This is a very important aspect of protecting and informing the public at large about the type of ownership or business possess in an Intellectual Property associated with your business. For the said purposes, the proper notification should be given including but not limited to the Rights you possess in a particular Intellectual Property by displaying the registration numbers in the terms of Service Agreement of the website. You should clearly mention if you are the owner and / or licensee and /or franchise of a mark under which you are selling the services to your customers.
The notifications should also include the terms of linking and framing by others to your website, which should describe the landing page as well as the obligation of the linker or the framer to provide a link to your website.
3. Use of Latest Technologies to Combat Piracy:
There are various technologies available today to combat piracy issues on the internet. If you are an owner of the IP, you should use the technology measures to detect the pirated copies being used on the internet of which you have legitimate rights in the work. The use of technologies like DRM and Copyscape have proven to be a good tool to protect the interest of Intellectual Property owners on the internet.
4. Agreements and Contractual Obligations:
Intellectual Property owners should always deal with the specific use of Intellectual Property while entering into any agreement with the licensee or franchisee about the use of his IP on the internet by mentioning the complete details and the use that is permitted by the owner to the franchise or the licensee including but not limited to registration of domain names linking to the main website of franchiser and / or licensor and the use of licensor and / or franchiser logos on his website for the purposes of marketing and information to the general public.
The detailed clauses of the agreement should also include the transfer of all the domain names and other websites including micro sites that may be developed by the licensee and / or franchisee during the term of the agreement to the licensor and / or franchisor on the termination of the contract.
5. Jurisdiction:
Jurisdiction on the internet is the major challenge for the Intellectual Property owners as well as enforcement agencies worldwide. It is always advisable to state the jurisdiction on your website and bound your users before accessing the same by click wrap agreements or by executing the same using legally valid techniques. Since different laws applied to different jurisdictions around the globe, the decision as to the choice of jurisdiction by the user and owner of the website plays an important role while deciding the disputes arising out of the internet based transactions and /or violations.
CONCLUSION:
The internet can be an excellent tool for promoting yourself online but at the same time possesses a great challenge to your valuable assets. It is always advisable to have well drafted Intellectual Property Strategies and have Intellectual Property management professionals to take care of your Intellectual Property Portfolios on the internet. Many of these risks can be avoided if a right strategy is adopted before starting and / or expanding your Intellectual Property portfolios on the internet.
This article does not, in any way, provides for any barrier to any business to expand or maintain its business port folio on the internet but only gives an overview of possible threat that a business can encounter in an internet age. If the right strategies are adopted and diligence is done in an appropriate manner, lot of risks can be avoided and online business can flourish while protecting the Intellectual Property Rights.
Gurpreet Singh
Internet Lawyer
Amarjit & Associates
www.gurpreet.tel
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