The problems and impacts of intellectual property rights on open science and their actual effects

Seminar paper from the year 2015 in the subject Economics - Macro-economics, general, grade: 2,0, University of Kassel, language: English, abstract: Globalization, digitalization and the fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0) have reached a point where intellectual property has to be guarded. To give an example: today it is no problem anymore to watch movies, listen to music or get access to relevant information on a specific issue on the internet. Even though it is not legal to download these information, numbers of illegal downloads are rising every year.

In present economies innovation is mandatory. But innovation can only arise from new acquired knowledge. This knowledge has most commonly its origin in scientific research. With intellectual property rights (IPR) it is achievable to transfer this knowledge from the academic sector to the commercial sector. With that, the knowledge gap between these institutions can be closed.