ECOMMERCE AND THE INTERNET
Today e-commerce and the Internet is effecting our everyday business lives more and more. In order to be successful in today's market and in tomorrow's market we must have or utilize the Internet and ecommerce Ecommerce, Internet, digital business and e-business are all hot buzzwords in today's technical markets. These are the fastest growing entities that exist and will have the greatest impact on our lives. These unknown territories also have little laws that govern them. The courts are having to adjust existing laws each and every day to the problems that arise dealing with the Internet. The following is but a general overview of the areas of question on the Internet involving ecommerce CONTRACTSToday contracts are not between two people in the same city or state, but between people in different states and countries and with different governing laws. The safest avenue for people is to establish in the contracts where disputes will be litigated, and what states and what laws will govern the contracts. People are not necessarily meeting face to face but rather computer to computer. You do not always know the person you are dealing with and extra caution must be taken to ensure that there is authority to contract prior to the execution of the contract. Electronic or digital signatures are now given the same weight and authority of regular written signatures. Certain criteria must be met to authenticate the electronic or digital signature. The United States recently enacted the Global Electronic Signature Act which governs all electronic contracts and signatures.JURISDICTIONFor the state to acquire jurisdiction over a person does not require that person to have been physically present in the state. With the Internet and ecommerce your presence on the Internet and your web site can be sufficient for a state to acquire jurisdiction over you for litigation purposes.TRADEMARKSTrademarks and Trade names identify products or services from a particular company. For any business their Trade mane or mark can be invaluable and increase profits. An identifiable mark or domain name can be vital to gaining the trust and business of customers. The law attempts to allow consumers to quickly and easily identify a product or service based on the trademark or name. Your Trademark or Trade name should be filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office to insure that all persons within the United States are put on notice that you are the owner of such mark or name.TRADE SECRETSA trade secret is any information that is secret and has economic value, it can be a customer list, database, formula, software, business plans, designs or any similar information. Trade Secret protection for information requires two basic criteria to be protected: the information must be secret and it must provide the owner with economic value, such as an advantage over a competitorwho does not have the information. The secrecy requirement is of critical importance: the information must not be generally known in the industry and the information must be treated as and kept secret. Once information is generally known in an industry, there is no more protection for the information.COPYRIGHTSAlmost all digital content that a person creates will automatically be protected by copyright. There are two minimal requirements that must be met in order to qualify for copyright protection. The work must be original and must be in tangible form. The work must be in a form which it can be perceived, reproduced or otherwise communicated either directly or with the aid of a machine or device. Ideas or something that only exists in someone's mind or statements that are made orally to other persons are not in tangible form and are not copyrightable. |
||||||