advanced theory and practice in sport marketing - Marshalls University

licenses instead of paying. Examples of this are regularly seen in NASCAR. The
first was done in 1998 when the Action/DC Comic-designed Batman-themed car
became the first motorsports cross-licensing merchandising program.
Licensing is often used where there is a barrier to trade or constraints on and
risk in foreign investment. Licensing can open doors for a company to enter a
foreign market where it otherwise might have been forbidden. On the other
hand, problems with licensing include the potential for creating competitors.
For this reason, licensing is often seen as a last-resort strategic alliance when
other options are not available.
The Economic Espionage Act of 1996 (the EEA) for the first time makes
trade secret theft a federal crime, subject to penalties including fines, forfeiture,
and imprisonment, and greatly expands the federal government’s power to
investigate economic espionage cases. Trade secret theft is broadly defined to
cover all acts of such as licensing, marks, patents, and intellectual property. The
EEA was intended to fill gaps in the federal law and to create a national scheme
to protect US proprietary business information.
Intellectual Properties
Intellectual property status is a protection that is granted by law to an individual
or business providing it with the exclusive rights to something it has created.
For sport products and services, the most common intellectual properties
are patents, copyrights, trademarks, service marks, and collective marks.
Patent
Issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, patent grant property
rights to an inventor for a particular invention. The term of a new patent is 20 years
from the date on which the application for the patent was filed in the United States
or, in special cases, from the date an earlier related application was filed, subject to
the payment of maintenance fees. United States patent grants are effective only
within the United States, United States territories, and United States possessions.
The right conferred by the patent grant is, in the language of the statute and
of the grant itself, “the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for
sale, or selling” the invention into the United States or “importing” the invention
into the United States. What is granted is not the right to make, use, offer
for sale, sell, or import, but the right to exclude others from making, using,
offering for sale, selling, or importing the invention.
Copyright
According to the United State Copyright Office, a copyright is a form of protection
provided by the laws of the United States (Title 17, US Code) to the
authors of “original works of authorship,” including literary, dramatic, musical,
artistic, and certain other intellectual works. This protection is available to
both published and unpublished works. Section 106 of the 1976 Copyright Act
SPORT PRODUCT MANAGEMENT 149