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Globalization of Media Power |
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Until the 1980s most media were domestically owned and regulated. Then, following the increased emphasis on free trade, national deregulation and privatization, pushed for by institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, drastic changes within the world of media occurred.
While throughout the 1990s media were still primarily organized on a national or local level, with the further rise of neoliberalism and the implementation of free movement of labor, goods, services and capital between countries the importance of national boundaries has diminished. Today the whole world participates in one global market system. Just as many other industries also commercial media have followed the trend towards globalization, resulting in an increasing number of transnational corporations (TNCs), which maintain subsidies in several countries and operate and invest on the basis of a multi-country perspective.
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Invention
According to the  WIPO an invention is a "... novel idea which permits in practice the solution of a specific problem in the field of technology." Concerning its protection by law the idea "... must be new in the sense that is has not already been published or publicly used; it must be non-obvious in the sense that it would not have occurred to any specialist in the particular industrial field, had such a specialist been asked to find a solution to the particular problem; and it must be capable of industrial application in the sense that it can be industrially manufactured or used." Protection can be obtained through a patent (granted by a government office) and typically is limited to 20 years.
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