Intellectual Property and Its Role in Soutwest Airlines

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Intellectual Property and its Role in Southwest Airlines The term “intellectual property” refers to a field of legal doctrines created to protect the rights and ownership of one’s ideas and creations. This paper will discuss the aspects of intellectual properties, Southwest Airlines’ connection to intellectual properties, and the importance of understanding the concept of intellectual properties in order to be successful in the marketplace. There are many types of intellectual properties including copyright, patent, trademark, and trade secret. All of these play an important role in keeping to rights to a creation to the creator. Copyright tends to cover individual creations while trademark, patent and trade secret protect the rights of a company. Trademarks can cover the creation of a certain idea that a company comes up with while patents and trade secrets cover the rights of inventions, formulas and software. Intellectual properties are essential to allowing exclusive rights to an individual or company’s creative works. This allows a company to share and distribute their ideas without the threat of it being stolen and used for a different purpose. These intellectual property laws are recognized for major contributions to society and the economy. Recently intellectual properties have been credited with the majority of companies’ success, therefore catapulting intellectual properties to the forefront of our social and economic interest. Southwest Airline owns the rights to certain intellectual properties that allow it to stand out among its competition. If a company, especially one in such a highly competitive industry, does not have exclusive rights to certain aspects of its operation than it is extremely difficult to compete. The airline industry seems to be one those that it is very difficult to obtain intellectual properties, especially when dealing

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