Law and Innovation

Fresh and interesting article posted on Mashable concerning the big news that Apple is close to buying Beats Electronics for $3.2 billion and the real reason behind it. "(....) If Apple does buy Beats for roughly $3 billion, a deal that is widely reported to be in its closing stages, it won't be because of the headphones. (Though given the fact that Apple sells Beats cans in every Apple store in the world, and has exact sales figures for each model, keeping all that profit to itself would be a nice boost for the bottom line.) No, this is more about Beats' streaming music service, Apple's tenacious grip on music distribution, and the fact that with a deal like this, Apple could easily become a recording industry giant that cuts out the middleman entirely — a notion that keeps executives at Sony, Universal, EMI and the rest of the major labels up at night. When Apple CEO Tim Cook had a high-level summit with Beats CEO Jimmy Iovine during a visit to LA...

In today's knowledge economy, intellectual property (hereafter "IP") rights are very important and powerful.  Unfortunately for (young) entrepreneur's, it's not always the first thing that will cross your mind when you start a business. Indeed, you get excited by your project, you have a multitude of activities and issues that you have to deal with, you start to spread your idea everywhere, etc. However, if you want to protect your smartphone application (hereafter “app”) and generate profits, you should really read this article! In this article, two questions will be analyzed. In terms of IP rights protection: (1)     What should a startup do when starting a business? For instance, should you patent your smartphone application  [5] ? Do you need a trademark? A short summary of  Apple trademark applications icon 'strategy' will also be explained.   (2)     What can a sta...