Question

Discuss the distinction between intellectual property and tangible property or real estate. What forms of intellectual property exist? Locate a high profile legal case (that actually went to court), where a form of intellectual property faced a legal challenge. Give a brief synopsis of the case, including the outcome and what type of damages were awarded, if any.

Answer 1

Intellectual property refers to the intangible form of assets that a firm or any entity has created or purchased as a legal right. Forms of intellectual property includes patents, copyrights, designs, software codes, Artistic & literary works, secret formulas (such as the chemical composition formula of Coca Cola) etc. In this information age intellectual property of several technology firms has been valued at several orders higher than the tangible properties owned by them.

Tangible property or real estate is the traditional sense of assets or property where the assets are physical objects, buildings etc.

A high profile legal case- Apple Inc. sued Samsung Electronics

In 2011, Apple filed a lawsuit against Samsung alleging that Samsung blatantly copied Apple's designs & other features from iPhone & iPad into their smartphones & tablets. This also constituted patent infringements as Apple had patented most of those designs & utilities. In 2012 court trials found Samsung guilty of the Intellectual property infringements.

The result of this was that Samsung had to pay $399 million to Apple to compensate for the damages arising from the infringement. Moreover in 2018 jury awards $539 compensation for Apple which meant that Samsung would pay additional $140 million to Apple. The series of lawsuits is still ongoing between these two major companies.