3M Corporation
3M was founded in 1902 and has grown into an extremely diversified international organization. The company offers a variety of products and services: "consumer and office; display and graphics; electro and communications; health care; industrial and transportation; and safety, security and protection services," (3M, 2007). 3M does business in several countries all over the world; because of this, they participate in e-business on an international level. This opens the door to many potential legal issues that the company may have to face. Some of those issues may be intellectual property such as copyright issues, and contract issues (Nasir, 2001).
Intellectual Property
For an international company conducting E-business, the theft of intellectual property, such as copyrights, trademarks, patents, and trade secrets, is a serious issue. The 3M Corporation has rights to many brands, trademarks, products, and technologies. If hackers were to hack into the company's Website and steal all the information, they would have all the inside information and they would be able to recreate the products or sell the information to someone else. In some countries, information is considered something that is shared among everyone, therefore the act of "stealing" information is not considered unethical. However, there are intellectual property laws to protect against this sort of theft.
On a small scale level, copyright law is considered civil law. This means that civil courts would decide on most copyright issues. However, in the United States, "commercial copyright violation involving more than 10 copies and value over $2500" is considered a felony (Templeton, 2004). Within the United States, these issues would be decided in criminal court.
On an intern ...