Creativity & Intellectual Property for Entrepreneur

It’s not the fist time that I heard the word of “intellectual property”, but I never try to find detail information for it. The lecture often tells me how the important to be creative is and somehow business people like to imitate our ideas. It’s not easy to protect our own creative idea because there are many criteria that should be prepared. Some myths of creativity that people who have low IQ tend to have low creativity, however it against the theory that creativity does not grow in parallel with higher IQ scores. Even though education is important to boost creativity but actually education and creativity are not necessarily interdependent. Why? Some entrepreneurs argue that modern higher education stresses logic and that tens to squelch creativity (Charles Banfe, 1991). I agree that statement while we can develop creativity skills, but the creativity can not learn easily. Everyone has their capabilities that depend of their brain or where the genes pool in. Then, regarding that creativity knowledge I would like to define why the intellectual property is needed for entrepreneur.

So, what is the intellectual property? According to article “Entrepreneurship: successfully launching new venture” stated that it is any product of human intellect that is intangible but has value in market place. It is called “intellectual” property because it is the product of human imagination, creativity, and inventiveness (Baringer,B.R & Ireland, R.D, 2006). Furthermore, how many types of intellectual property? There are four: patents, trademark, copyright and trade secret.

Entrepreneurial need to identify and aware of other competitors before protect its property. It need process and need time & cost to process it. While there are two rules of thumb for determining whether intellectual property (IP) are worth the time and expenses of protecting.
· First, the firm should determine whether IP is directly related to its current competitive advantage or could facilitate the development of future competitive advantage.
· Second, knowing whether the IP has independent value in the marketplace.

Finally, I believe creativity and intellectual property are related each other because it’s the convenience way for entrepreneur company to keep their idea legally to avoid the dispute among competitors that try to imitate it.

Sources:
Barringer,B.R. & Ireland, R.D. (2006). Entrepreneurship: successful launching new ventures (pp.278-300). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.
Banfe, Charles (1991). Entrepreneur From Zero To Hero. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.