Intellectual and technological property Essay

In the United States, the stakes of identifying the best laws and policies for the use of intellectual and technological property are very high (U. S. Congress, 1986). As a general rule, developers of computer software seek legal protection for intellectual property by using traditional legal mechanisms found in copyright, trade secret, patent, trademark and licensing. Of these forms of protection the most easily attainable protection is through copyright law, which makes it illegal to make or distribute copies of copyrighted material in the U.  S. without authorization (Qu & Potkonjak, 2003). BUGusa should be using, first and foremost, the legal protection of copyright laws in order to guard its intellectual property. In an instance of educating Congress Members regarding the steps taken by the FBI for trade and intellectual theft, an example of a case was presented by the FBI to the Congress. Patrick Worthing was arrested by the FBI after agreeing to sell Pittsburgh Plate Glass information for $1000 to a Pittsburgh agent posing as a representative of Owens-Corning, Toledo, Ohio. Patrick Worthing was sentenced to 15 months in jail and three years probation for the Theft of Trade Secrets (Gallagher, 1998). Wiretime would have to face similar liabilities if Steve is caught in the act of transferring important corporate or intellectual information to his mother company. Walter could be guilty of may be a tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress. The threat to hurt Steven can be interpreted as an assault. These claims rise from allegedly wrongful employment practices. The tort requires that the defendant’s conduct was extreme and outrageous and that severe physical or emotional harm resulted. Courts however demand more (Lindemann & Grossman, 1983). Seeing as Walter did not harm Steven in any way apart from threatening to hurt him, the chances of liability held against Walter and BUGusa are not tantamount to a lot. Steve himself had handed over the information to Walter and had left the small room without being physically harmed. Liu and Ye (2001) discuss various issues of security and application security related to software agents ranging from market chaos, agent authorization and transaction. For security, the prime advice I would give to BUGusa would be to protect the entire system with consistent and appropriate security measures. Sometimes the system is complex and often not designed with security in mind. Therefore it is important to scrutinize each component for its security weaknesses and protect it accordingly (Interactive Information Security Policies, 2007). In my opinion, BUGusa may not have to face liability if the vendor was attacked. The vandalism in the city is not under the control of the company and BUGusa must highlight the point that the company does as far as it can by making the parking lot and dock are well-lit. As for the vandalism and the theft, these are street crimes which the government and law-enforcement agencies are to be held accountable for. BUGusa may defend itself by suffering a loss themselves through the vandalism. It may also go on to assure for the future that increased security measures would be taken in order to avoid such circumstances. BUGusa needs to prove that Wiretime has committed some criminal activity against them. If Steve has been bribed by Wiretime to commit this act, or has been successfully proven into being seen as committing a pattern of criminal activity, RICO can be claimed. BUGusa must prove that Steve has been passing valuable information to Wiretime for over a large period of time. Sally DoGood may have a successful case against BUGusa for the tort of Product Liability. The product, through legal definition, has caused a defect due to the defect resulting from the basic criteria that it involved â€Å"seller’s failure to exercise reasonable care† and â€Å"would cause a reasonable person in position of the buyer to expect the used product to present no greater risk of defect than if the product were new†. Experts also say that if the plaintiff discovers that the alleged defect has been discovered, (which may be argued in the case of BUGusa) the plaintiff can move on to a negligence claim (Allee, 1984).