Diana Bang's ETEC 531 e-portfolio

IPRs are intellectually property rights. Murphie and Potts (2003) define intellectual property to be “the ownership of particular items of knowledge, ideas or cultural production” and Petrina (2003) outlines the challenges and issues of “unbundling” (i.e. assigning) intellectual property rights to authors, employers, publishers, universities, etc particularly in the context of distance education and offers a guideline on how to protect your IP rights.

According to the World Trade Organization (2011), they are the “rights given to persons over the creations of their minds. They usually give the creator an exclusive right over the use of his/her creation for a certain period of time” There are two major forms that they take: 1) copyright and rights related to copyright; and 2) industrial property. For more information from the WTO about intellectual property rights check out: http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/intel1_e.htm.

In Canada, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office administers intellectual property (IP) laws and regulations by granting ownership for five types of IP: patents, trademarks, copyrights, industrial designs and integrated circuit topographies.  For more information about IP and the Canadian Intellectual Property Office, check out the following links at:
http://www.cipo.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/cipointernet-internetopic.nsf/eng/h_wr00331.html

http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/cipointernet-internetopic.nsf/eng/h_wr00027.html

Also, in terms of intellectual property rights crimes, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) outlines it as “copyright piracy and trademark counterfeiting” which is a growing international phenomenon linked to organized crime and terrorism. Here’s more information about the penalties and additional resources about intellectual property rights crimes at: http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/fep-pelf/ipr-dpi/publications-eng.htm