Talk:Industrial design rights

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[edit] Intellectual Property

User:Guyjohnston edited out the term Intellectual Property from this article. As it seems to be the generally accepted term in the art, and it is property generated by intellectual activity, I've put it back. If anyone wants to comment on the issue, here is, of course, the place --Harris 21:42, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

In my opinion (and that of others), the term "intellectual property" is a biased and misleading propaganda term. The main problem is that it's used to group together many different laws, including copyright, patents, trade marks, designs, trade secrets, moral rights, plant breeders' rights and others, as a single issue, to discourage intelligent thought and criticism of them. Those laws are separate, are very different and were created independantly, to serve different purposes. I have opinions of the separate laws, but I don't have one of "intellectual property law", and it's impossible to have one which is intelligent and informed.

I'd beg to differ on that point. I am a patent attorney; I like to think I know what the law is, and what you can do with it. I do know at least some of the arguments for and against the different rights; to some extent I'm neutral on whether they're a good idea (other than they pay my wages) but I do my best to exploit them to my clients' advantages. You are right that they are different rights and were created to and still do protect different things. But they are related; they are all created by some sort of intellectual endevaour. --Harris 21:56, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I didn't mean that they're completely unrelated, I was pointing out that they're separate laws with different effects, issues and reasons for existing. It's true that they generally have a lot in common, particularly that they are created by intellectual endeavours. It's not the use of the word "intellectual" that bothers me, it's the use of the word "property". My main reason for arguing against that is that it gives the impression that those laws are natural rights, like property law, rather than artificial privileges to benefit the public, which is what they generally are (as owning something which can be copied presents different issues than owning something which can't be). But I've read the article on the term again and I think it explains the arguments for and against the term very well, so anyone who follows a link to it can easily make their up their own mind about it. Guyjohnston 21:03, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Secondly, the term is used to imply that the laws it covers are part of property law (to imply that they deserve the same status) which is untrue. Industrial design rights (and other "intellectual property rights") aren't property rights, and the laws which deal with them are separate from property law. It's true that they have similarities with property rights, for example, they give the holder a right to exclude others from doing something, but they have differences, for example design rights have a limited duration whereas property rights don't.

They have an awful lot in common with property (in the sense of real estate) rights. They are property, in that they can be bought and sold - for example section 30(1) of the UK Patents Act 1977 explicitly states they are "personal property" [1] and so they can be bought, sold, mortgaged and so on. They are rights that come into being due to some intellectual endeavor. So, they are Intellectual Property rights. And property rights can have limited duration - Leasehold estate for example. --Harris 21:56, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Another point that has just popped into my head is that not all of the rights are not necessarily exclusive. Copyright, unregistered design right and the like rely on being able to prove copying; if you have independent creation (which in some fields is possible) then you're not infringing copyright. --Harris 08:02, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

My basic point is that the term presents a biased view and is misleading, so it's not appropriate for an enyclopedia. It's quite easy to replace terms like "intellectual property right" with more neutral and correct terms such as "exclusive right". There's a good article about the problems with the term (presenting more or less the same points I have) here, and much of the same criticism is included in the "intellectual property" article. Guyjohnston 19:57, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough, the Intellectual Property article is the correct place for the criticism of the term (and this probably isn't). However, Intellectual Property is the term that is used to refer to these rights; it is a well recognised term. It's so well recognised that the UK government renamed the UK Patent Office the UK Intellectual Property office because that was a good description of the rights the Office dealt with (see the Gowers Report for more detail). Whilst I don't see the term is so biased, whilst the term is so well used and understood by the majority of people to mean those property rights that come into being due to some intellectual endeavor, I believe replacing the term Intellectual Property with exclusive rights etc as you have been doing makes those articles less clear. The rights form property of some value to a lot of companies, whether or not one believes they should do. --Harris 21:56, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I've read the "intellectual property" article again, and I've realised that the section about the criticisms of the term actually includes my arguments very comprehensively, and the first paragraph includes the point that "the term is a matter of some controversy", as well as pointing out that it's simply "an umbrella term for various legal entitlements". Therefore, if anyone follows a link to that page they easily find the arguments for and against the term, and make up their own mind about it, so what I was concerned about isn't really such a problem.

My main reason for disliking the term is the way some people refer to one specific law, usually copyright or patents, as "intellectual property" to be ambiguous about what they're talking about, and equate the laws as one concept. That doesn't happen very much on Wikipedia, and the term is mostly just used to show that specific laws are often classified using that umbrella term. If I do see one specific law such as copyright referred to as "intellectual property" (unless it's in a quotation), I usually change it to the specific term, because that makes the article less vague and more accurate, regardless of my views on the term in general. Guyjohnston 20:52, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

There are enough pedants hanging around these articles that we're generally accurate about what's being talked about ;) Thanks for your feedback; its nice to have a constructive discussion about these things --Harris 22:37, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] on merging

"Design right" and "Industrial design rights" describe almost same object. But each exceeds the other in some respects. "Industrial design rights" is superior to "Design right" from the viewpoint of VOP. So "Design right" should be merged to "Industrial design rights".Penpen0216 12:04, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

The initial assumption is incorrect: there is a significant difference between design right under UK law and industrial design rights in general and UK design right deserves its own article. I'm so sure of this that I'm going to remove the merge notices. 82.108.5.22 (talk) 16:04, 4 January 2008 (UTC)