Academic Integrity in a Digital Age

Intellectual property refers to all statutory and other proprietary rights (including rights to require information be kept confidential) in respect of inventions, copyright, trademarks, designs, patents, plant breeder's rights, circuit layouts, know-how, trade secrets, and geographical indications. It also includes all other rights as defined by the respective pieces of legislation and international conventions governing intellectual property (UDSM, 2008). Products and services are protected for two main reasons. First is to give a legal appearance to the ethical and economic rights of originators in their inventions and the rights of the community in accessing those creations (WIPO, 2008). Second is to promote the said creativity, and the distribution and function of its results promote a reasonable trading which would contribute to economic and social development of the originator. Creativity in education is a key component and thus a need to develop understanding of intellectual property. Each invention has a right to be protected. It is in this view that all dissertations and academic books are copyrighted. 

There are two broad areas of IP. The first one constitutes Industrial property branch and the second constitute copyright branch. Copyright and related rights protect literary, artistic and scientific works while areas like inventions, industrial designs, trademarks, service marks, commercial names and designations are protected by Industrial property. Intellectual property can be protected based on four different forms. These are copyrights, patents, trademarks, industrial designs and geographical indications, and trade secrets. Each form has a unique function in helping individuals and businesses, protecting their creations as introduced above. The IP protection is governed by the types of items that are being protected, the duration of the protection, the geographical areas where the protection extends, and the time from which the protection is made available.