Intellectual Property in the United States has become increasingly more important in the last decade. The right to own one's genius is not a new concept. However, with the arrival of the digital age, it has become much harder to remain in control of one's intellectual property. Intellectual property has grown from the need to protect one's new invention, such as soap, to the need to protect a slogan or a color. In other words, intellectual property rights no longer protect solely the interest of preserving a trade secret; it is now the interest to preserve one's monetary gain.
The first form of intellectual property law was patent law. In 1790, Congress passed the first patent laws. These laws were modeled after European, patent, common law. Before Americans had the right to their intellectual property, it belonged to the King of England. If colonists wanted the rights to their inventions, they had to petition the state or ``the governing body of the colony[1].'' The first United States Patent Grant was signed by George Washington on July 31, 1790. Thomas Jefferson was the inspector, and together they issued the first American patent. Which was for a new method for making Potash. In 1790, the price of a patent was four dollars[2].
The Four Areas Covered by Intellectual Property: Patents, Copyrights, Trademarks and Trade Secrets.
Of the four areas, patents are the most common. Although they are difficult to obtain, they hold the strongest protection. Patents are grants from the government giving exclusive rights to ``make, use, and sell a product for 20 years.'' Their attributes include providing strong protection, and total exclusivity. Their downsides include long expensive, technical processes, and inventors must make all the details of their product known to the public. One must apply to the Federal government for a patent. Patents protect ``novel, useful, non-obvious and intangible'' ideas[3].
It sounds like you copy/pasted from the website of some ip lawyer.
Start with your first sentence "Intellectual Property in the United States has become increasingly more important in the last decade.". Important to whom? Lawyers? Lobbyists?
Nobody disputes that short lived patents can be helpful. The question is more whether it is good to try to intimidate scientists into following a very low level, short term set of laws meant only to protect a few major industries.
Artists and entertainers, for example, are not going to starve if they are good, but especially they are not going to try to squeeze every last dollar out of their art if they are decent.
For scientists even more true. Look at the link in the original post
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/10/us/politics/fbi-xi-xiaoxing.html A group of fbi agents does not like that guy, for whatever reason, so they use the law to target him. That is the only use of laws like that, targeting people or preventing others from getting some benefit you have. You can argue up and down but really common sense is what you should use rather than rhetorical tricks.
The scientist in that article might or might not have been brilliant, but I guarantee that he is less brilliant now, less productive, more cautious. As are many of his colleagues who are now aware that they must be wary of attacks from the fbi. Is it really worth it? America has been driven into the ground by petty attacks on harmless things while the really harmful things are acceptable. Got an idea and want to develop it? Be careful. Got a badge and want to show a scientist that you are bigger than him? Go for it.
