Intellectual property
Just like any business would need to depend on the real property, e-business heavily relies on the intellectual property for its operations. In this regard, intellectual property can be taken to refer to a collection of several aspects, including trade names, trademarks, domain names, and the patents.
They are forms of intellectual property commonly used for physical businesses, although they are also used for the virtual e-business. The same principles and laws that are used in governing the physical businesses are the same ones used for guiding e-businesses.
Trademarks are legally used to give identity to the goods of a manufacturer whereas a trade name is used for identifying a business or vocation
Domain names
They are the only forms of intellectual property that are unique to guiding e-businesses and not any other business. There may be some controversies on whether or not domain names are part of the intellectual property but it stands that the same principles that are used to guide trademarks and trade names are the ones applied for the domain names. A domain name is a unique sequence of words, phrases, letters or other characters as deemed necessary that is used for identifying a particular network or computer and forms the address through which all information in that network or computer can be accessed.
Even though e-businesses may be allowed to operates beyond the borders of their mother countries, it is usually a requirement that the domain name is tailored to be in line with the laws of the individual countries within which the e-business operates. However, it is also important to note that there are global principles that are usually used by all registrars in each country to govern the domain names. This makes it easier for e-businesses to operate in more than one country without making so many changes on their domain names. It is also true that a trademark or domain name of an e-business may be registered under the laws of one country but when applied to another country, it is found to violate some rights of the competitors based in that country.
