Welcome to the week four discussion one assignment. This week, you will get introduced to the topic of intellectual property. What is intellectual property? Intellectual property, or IP as it is referred to in the industry, are the scientific, artistic, or literary inventions, concepts, products, or designs that, most important in our study here, could be used to generate money.

The public often hears IP by the names of some of their legal protections, such as patents, trademarks, and copyrights. Each of those terms are government-protected monopolies that benefit its holder. Patents are legal protections for the development of new products and processes. Trademarks are legal protections for images andsymbols used in business. And copyright protects written creations, such as songs and books.

The government has these protections in place to reward their creator of new inventions in the hopes that others will be driven to invent new ideas, knowing that those too could be protected by law. But why is intellectual property important to business? In America, our economy has drifted away from its traditional manufacturing base and moved towards a service economy that increasingly utilizes the internet.

This type of economic base is greatly reliant on the constant generation of new ideas. The way American society does daily activities, such as buy products or transport people, has drastically changed in the last generation or two. And this change is in result in large part because of new intellectual property.

Intellectual property allows businesses and entrepreneurs to make money off their new inventions and ideas. But they can only make money off their new designs if their new designs are legally protected and other entities can’tjust steal these new ideas, especially since the stealing entities haven’t invested all the time and effort to produce the new ideas. IP fuels the internet, the gig economy, mobile devices, medical devices, digital entertainment, among many other sectors in our economy.

It is very important to our economy and our society. I think you’ll find this week interesting. If you have any questions, please let the professor know.