Illegal Transfer of Technologies: A Taxonomic View

Abstract

Illegal transfer of technology (ITT) is one of the major policy formulation, industrial management, and law enforcement issues of this decade. It includes industrial espionage, the piracy of; software, logos, and hardware designs and it overlaps with issues of terrorism and those involving weapons of mass destruction. It is of concern at corporate, national, and world-body levels. Technology herein is defined broadly to include intellectual property. ITT involves various kinds of players, takes on various modalities and is done for various motivations. The ITT literature is very disjoint and disparate. It transcends several academic disciplines, professions and professional communities. This paper presents a taxonomy defining the field in its entirety and delineating all of its facets in a manner that is parsimonious yet discriminating. A number of potential uses for the taxonomy are identified as are its potential users.

Keywords: Technology transfer, Intellectual property, Illegal technology transfer, Piracy, Copyright, Patent, Trademark, Trade secret, Internet transfer of technology, Illegal Technology transfer policy, Technology transfer law, Research-technology management, R&D management, Espionage, Industrial Espionage