A Consideration for Intellectual Property Rights under Digital Environments

전자상거래에서의 지적재산권에 관한 문제점과 개선방안

In the current digital age, most of the countries in the world recognize the electronic business to be a very prospective area in the future and plan to activate for the preoccupation of the business. As a result, this led a rapid increase of the electronic business volume. Electronic business takes place in the cyber space, using internet. However, the intellectual property rights have a high degree of possibility of being infringed as the digitalized intellectual property is easy to receive, copy and transmit in the cyber space. The language structure on the web, represented by HTML, makes easier to copy the intellectual property. And, as the internet has no national boundary, the infringement of the intellectual property rights is easier regardless of country, which could lead to the commercial disputes between the concerned countries. There are in fact many legal disputes nowadays on the infringement of the intellectual property rights in such field as computer programming, infringement of the copyright, business model patent and infringement of the trademark right on the registered name of the domain. It is, therefore, time now to prepare a new theory or legal system to protect the intellectual property rights on copyright, patent and trademark right so as to comply with the digital environment together with such a splendid growth of "electronic business." USA and Germany are nowadays making a significant movement on the legislation of the electronic business, and this study will focus on the legislative contents, judicial precedents and interpretation of law in the above countries.