CHAPTER 3
Issues Affecting IP Rights Internationally Cultural Issues CULTURAL ACCEPTANCE
It is important to recognize and respect the culture of other people when you develop your IP rights. Cultural differences will affect whether your IP will be accepted, will gain in value, and will bring an increase in market share. The mark that you introduce in connection with your goods or services, the book, art, or music that you choose to create, or the invention that you decide to develop must have attraction to the culture where you intend to market it. Otherwise, your IP rights will have little or no commercial value. Culture determines what is acceptable in daily life, work, health care, and recreation. You must be aware and sensitive to other cultures so that you can adapt your IP to their preferences and succeed in foreign markets. If you are not planning to adapt your IP to differences in culture, your cultural awareness is still important for purposes of identifying the markets where you will succeed and those where your IP will not gain a share. In identifying cultural preferences, always remember that culture applies to people, not nations. In today’s fast moving world, it is nearly impossible to identify a single culture for a particular country. Many subcultures are likely to exist within a country because the rate of cross-border travel is on the rise, populations are mobile, and people in all corners of the globe are discovering how other people live through the ever-expanding web of mass media. Do not cling to preconceived notions of culture, but rather learn to recognize and accept the differences within the peoples of one nation. Cultural awareness is important when you first begin to develop your creation, since acceptance in the marketplace is what gives your IP commercial value. If you choose to create artwork that will not be acceptable because of content or color in some cultures, you have limited your market. If you develop a vaccine based on Western medicine, it may be less acceptable in countries where herbal remedies are preferred. If your trademark has a negative meaning in some cultures, your products or services will not gain a market share. CULTURAL RECOGNITION
Once you have developed your creation, cultural awareness will next come into play when you decide how to commercialize your creation and where to protect and enforce your IP rights. At this point, cultural recognition of IP rights becomes as important as cultural preferences. While you must continue to pay attention to cultural preferences in marketing your creation, you must also be acutely aware of whether the people in those markets accept and respect the private ownership of IP rights.
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