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Automotive Law

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Automotive

Memorandum

To: Management From: Learning Team A Date: 3/13/2011 Re: Automotive Tangible and Intellectual Property Issues

I. Relevant Tangible and Intellectual Property Issues in the Automotive Industry Relevant Tangible property issues in the automotive industry are vehicle systems design, manufacturing techniques, features, and parts. Ford is currently being sued by Paice LLC for the use of a hyper drive system that is being used in a number of Fords hybrid vehicles. Paice believes that they own the patient on the drive system (Slind-Flor, 2010). Relevant intellectual property issues in the automotive industry are trademarks, service marks, copyrights, patents, concept drawings and trade secrets. For example, the name and logo Ford uses is intellectual property of Ford Motor Company. Trademarks can be registered in 10-year terms. The trademark can be renewed unlimited times in 10 year intervals (Cheeseman, 2010, p. 120). II. Legal Issues Facing the Company From Tangible and Intellectual Property Issues Legal issues facing the automotive industry concerning tangible and intellectual property include analyzing and prosecuting patents, protecting confidential information by creating and executing non-disclosure agreements as well as the ability to create identification and protection of products through intellectual property (Foley Lander Attorney at Law, p 2, n.a.). A company must be able to protect patents and keep confidential information safe from competitors in the automotive industry which is a fast growing and changing market. Protecting rights to new technologies, car designs and incentives is important to a company's growth. Licensing is another important legal aspect a company must also consider to ensure the company is not allowing a third party to use patents, trademarks, and service marks without the permission of the company. In the Automotive market a company must also be sure they do not use or access or break other competitor's property rights. WTO (International Trade Organization) is another issue to consider when protecting a company's tangible and intellectual property rights if the company is doing business overseas (Cheeseman, p. 827, 2010). Becoming a member of WTO could create and eliminate legal risk of doing business overseas III. How to Protect the Company’s Tangible and Intellectual Property Rights

IV. How to Avoid Violating the Tangible and Intellectual Property Rights of Others

• Enter into nondisclosure and noncompetitive agreements • Employ legal specialists and counsel to maintain legal standards of intellectual property rights • Provide copyright, trademark and patent to all potential management, staff, and vendors • Become part of WTO when doing business overseas to ensure the company has an outlet to control tangible and intellectual property rights against competitor interference. • Ensure proper licensing of third party companies when releasing patents, trademarks, and service marks.

References
Cheeseman, H. R. (2010). Business Law: Legal Environment, Online Commerce, Business Ethics and International Issues (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Foley Lander Attorney at Law (n.a.) Company Brochure, Intellectual Property, Retrieved on February 21st 2011 from http://www.foley.com/files/tbl_s31Publications/FileUpload137/827/automotive_long.pdf
Slind-Flor, V. (2010, May 11, 2010). Google, Yum, Mattel, PepsiCo: Intellectual Property (Update1). BusinessWeek. Retrieved from http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-05-11/google-yum-mattel-pepsico-intellectual-property-update1-.html

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