This document discusses intellectual property and its relationship to economic development. It defines intellectual property as legal protections for inventions, works of authorship, and names. Patents, copyrights, and trademarks are described as providing exclusive rights over inventions and creative works. The document then discusses how intellectual property protections can stimulate research, technology transfer, and new business development, thus promoting economic growth as measured by indicators like GDP.

1. Lesson 4

2. Class Activity
 Students, working in pairs, will write a one-sentence
analysis of the following quote.
 “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
Albert Einstein

3. “Intellectual property”
 What do you think it mean by the phrase, “intellectual
property?”

4. Intellectual Property (IP)
 Intellectual property (IP) is an umbrella term for
various legal entitlements that attach to certain
names, written and recorded media, and inventions.
 The holders of these legal entitlements may exercise
various exclusive rights in relation to the subject
matter of the IP.

5. IP
 The term intellectual property reflects the idea that
this subject matter is the product of the mind or the
intellect.
 The term implies that intellectual works are analogous
to physical property and is consequently a matter of
some controversy.

6. IP and Einstein
 Albert Einstein’s preference for imagination over
knowledge is a starting point, because IP is based on
the power of imagination.

7. IP and Einstein Cont.
 Einstein understood that IP is the ability to stand on
an existing foundation of accepted knowledge, and yet
see beyond to the next frontier of discovery that is the
source of personal, cultural, and economic
advancement.

8. Class Activity
 Think for a minute about the relationship between
Intellectual Property and economic well-being of a
nation.

9. Economic well-being
 The economic well-being of a nation is sometimes
expressed in terms of Gross National Product or Gross
Domestic Product (GDP).

10. GDP
 The GDP of a country is defined as the market value of
all final goods and services produced within a country
in a given period of time.

11. Copyright
 Copyright is the area of the law that provides
protection to original works of authorship such as
books, paintings, architecture, musical compositions,
and computer software.

12. Legal Protection
 The legal protection afforded such works permits the
development and flourishing of cultural industries, as
well as technology-oriented businesses based on
computer software and other technologies.

13. Example
 An indication of the amount of invention and
innovation going on in a county is the number of
patent applications.

14. Graph
 Students will speculate on why the scale of the vertical
axis is not linear.

15. Graph Explained
 For many years, economists have tried to provide an
explanation as to why some economies grow fast while
others do not; in other words, why some countries are
rich and others poor

16. Knowledge and Inventions
 It is generally agreed that knowledge and inventions
have played an important role in recent economic
growth.
 Economists suggest that the accumulation of
knowledge is the driving force behind economic
growth.

17. R&D
 For countries to promote growth, their economic
policies should encourage investment in new Research
and Development (R&D) and subsidize programs that
develop human capital.

18. Patents
 Patents can stimulate economic development in four
ways:
 a. Patent information facilitates technology transfer
and foreign direct investment.
 b. Patents encourage research and development at
universities and research centers.
 c. Patents are catalysts of new technologies and
businesses.
 d. Businesses accumulate patents and engage in
licensing, joint ventures, and other revenue-generating
transactions based on such assets.

19. Technology Transfer
 Technology transfer (spin-offs) occurs when a new
user applies an existing innovation developed for one
purpose in a different function.
 Aerospace composite materials, for example, were
used to design an advanced wheelchair that proved to
be lightweight and easy to maneuver.

20. Technology Transfer Sharing
 The transfer of technology from one society to another
can cause cultural, social, economic, and political
changes affecting both societies to varying degrees.
 Sharing methods to increase food production and
preservation can alter a county’s living habits in
significant ways

21. Class Question
 What is a patent?

22. Answer
 A patent is an exclusive right granted for an invention,
which is a product or a process that provides a new way
of doing something or offers a new technical solution
to a problem.

23. Class Question
 What does a patent do?

24. Answer
 A patent provides protection for the invention to the
owner of the patent. The protection is granted for a
limited period, generally 20 years.

25. Class Question
 What kind of protection does a patent offer?

26. Answer
 Patent protection means that the invention cannot be
commercially made, used, distributed or sold without
the patent owner’s consent.
 These patent rights are usually enforced in a court,
which, in most systems, holds he authority to stop
patent infringement.
 Conversely, a court can also declare a patent invalid
upon a successful challenge by a third party.

27. Class Question
 What rights does a patent owner have?

28. Answer
 A patent owner has the right to decide who may—or
may not—use the patented invention for the period in
which the invention is protected.
 The patent owner may give permission to, or license,
other parties to use the invention on mutually agreed
terms.

29. Answer Cont.
 The owner may also sell the right to the invention to
someone else, who will then become the new owner of
the patent.
 Once a patent expires, the protection ends, and an
invention enters the public domain; that is, the owner
no longer holds exclusive rights to the invention,
which becomes available to commercial exploitation
by others.

30. What does all this mean?
 To sum it up, the purpose of a patent is to safeguard
the investment of the inventor or creator and to give
credit where and when it is due.