6. The Ethics of Knowledge, Creativity, and Innovation: Rights in Ideas, Creators’ Rights, and the Proper Path to Solutions
Economic value does not always lie in something that can be placed in a warehouse, weighed, or easily shown to another person. Sometimes the most important asset of an individual or firm is knowledge built through years of trial and error; a method that reduces costs; software that solves a specific problem; a design that has not yet been made public; a customer list; or experience acquired only after several costly failures.
This intangibility makes ethical boundaries harder to identify. Taking another person’s machine or goods is usually recognized clearly as appropriation, but using an idea heard in a meeting, a method observed during a collaboration, or information entrusted to us may be justified with labels such as “inspiration,” “learning,” or “using experience.” The problem is that the boundary between legitimate learning and improper use is not always visible from the final result; we must ask how the knowledge was obtained and what rights accompanied it.
Not Every Idea Automatically Creates an Exclusive Right
In everyday conversation, the word “idea” is used for very different things: from a raw thought or an oral suggestion to a complete technical design, written text, a patentable invention, software, a business model, or confidential information. The law does not provide a single form of protection for all of these.
Under Article 1 of the Industrial Property Protection Act, adopted on 1 Khordad 1403 SH, an invention must result from the thought of one or more individuals and contain a practical and novel solution to a specific technical problem in an industrial field. Article 3 conditions the enjoyment of exclusive patent rights on registration with the registration authority, while Article 12 makes novelty, inventive step, and industrial applicability conditions for registration.1
Article 4 of the same Act excludes discoveries, scientific theories, mathematical methods, artistic works, and rules and methods for performing mental, social, business, and gaming activities from the category of inventions governed by the Act or from patent protection.[1] This does not mean such achievements have no value; it shows only that the broad label “idea” is not enough to create patent rights and that each subject must be assessed against the criteria of the relevant legal form.
Written, artistic, and technical works fall within a different framework. Article 1 of the Law for the Protection of Authors, Composers and Artists calls what is created through knowledge, art, or innovation a “work,” and Article 2 includes examples such as books, treatises, scientific and technical writings, designs, plans, architectural works, and innovative technical works among protected works. Article 3 recognizes for the creator the exclusive rights of publication, distribution, presentation, and performance, as well as the economic and moral rights associated with the creator’s name and work.2
Thus, the simple statement “this idea belongs to me” still leaves many legal questions unanswered. Is the subject an unexpressed thought, or has it been embodied in a specific work? Is it a technical solution that qualifies as an invention? Does the information meet the legal requirements of a trade secret? Is there an ownership or confidentiality agreement? Did several people contribute to creating it? A legal answer is impossible without these details.
Ethics, however, does not always end where legal protection ends. Conduct may be difficult to pursue because there was no registration, contract, or sufficient evidence and still remain unfair. A person who hears another person’s line of thought in a confidential meeting and later presents that same path as their own without acknowledging its source may face, in addition to any legal issue, a clear ethical problem of honesty and due recognition.
A Creator’s Right Is More Than a Right to Sell
When intellectual rights are discussed, attention usually focuses on income, licenses, and reproduction rights, but the name of the creator and attribution of the work also matter. The Law for the Protection of Authors, Composers and Artists recognizes the creator’s economic and moral rights in the name and the work. Article 4 of the same law states that the creator’s moral rights are unlimited in time and place and non-transferable.2
This distinction reminds us that payment does not always eliminate every moral right. Economic exploitation of a work may be assigned to another party by contract, but attributing the work to someone who did not create it, or removing the creator’s name, raises a separate issue. The nature of the work, the terms of the contract, and the law governing the relationship affect the legal result; a general principle should therefore not be turned into the same rule for every work or commission.
In collective work, determining shares is not easy either. Article 6 of the law on creators’ rights treats a work created through the collaboration of two or more creators, where each person’s contribution is not separate and distinct, as a joint work and makes the resulting rights jointly held by the creators.[2] The Industrial Property Protection Act likewise provides, for a joint invention, that each person’s share should be stated where it is known and that rights should correspond to those shares; if the shares cannot be separated, all names are listed on the certificate and the rights belong to them equally.[1]
These rules show that collaboration does not automatically turn an achievement into the property of one person. In practice, disputes often begin while the idea is still raw and the relationship friendly: contributions are not recorded, and decisions about ownership are postponed until the work acquires economic value. By that stage, people’s memories may also reconstruct the past in their own favor.
The ethics of collaboration requires the intellectual, operational, financial, and managerial contributions of participants to be documented before a dispute arises. Not every contribution creates the same right, but no genuine contribution should be ignored merely because its contributor has weaker bargaining power or is absent from the publicity surrounding the work.
The Rights of the Master and the Boundaries of Apprenticeship
The master-apprentice relationship is one of the principal routes by which knowledge is transmitted. An apprentice receives more than a set of general facts; sometimes they gain compressed experience that cost the master years to acquire. Methods for detecting mistakes, understanding the market, sequencing the work, dealing with customers, and even knowing which approaches do not work may all form part of this transfer.
The master’s rights do not amount to permanent ownership of the apprentice’s future. The apprentice has a right to grow, become independent, use public knowledge, and even compete in the same field. Education that creates permanent dependency and prevents independence has departed from its primary function.
Conversely, independence is not a license to forget the source of knowledge. An apprentice who has obtained a master’s proprietary method, internal documents, or confidential information cannot treat access itself as ownership. Nor is it necessarily independent growth when another person’s knowledge is turned into a product or personal claim without recognizing the contribution of the source of training or collaboration; ethically, that may resemble appropriation of a path someone else created.
Law does not provide a ready-made answer for every detail of a master-apprentice relationship. Some transferred knowledge may be public, some may be protected as a work or software, and some may meet the conditions of a trade secret. A training, employment, internship, or collaboration contract may also alter the limits of use. This diversity shows why respecting a master should not be reduced to politeness or naming them; genuine respect requires clarity about the origin of knowledge and the limits on its use.
Software: Between the Creator’s Name and the Employer’s Rights
In the digital economy, one of the most common disputes concerns software created during employment or in the performance of a contract. Article 1 of the Law on the Protection of the Rights of Computer Software Creators grants the creator the rights of publication, supply, performance, and economic and moral exploitation of the software.3
Article 6 of the same law, however, establishes a specific rule for software arising from employment or contract. If the purpose of the employment or contract is to create the specified software, or producing it forms part of the subject matter of the contract, the economic rights relating to modification and development of the software belong to the employing party or client unless the contract provides otherwise. The creator’s name must also be declared for issuance of the registration certificate.[3]
This rule separates two matters: the person who created the software must be recognized, while the economic exploitation rights may, in the circumstances specified by law, belong to the employer. In practice, the contract should be clear about source code, documentation, pre-existing libraries, development rights, later versions, reuse of components, support, and access after the relationship ends. The absence of these details creates the conditions for a dispute that later emerges in the vague question, “Who owns the software?”
Conversely, an employer cannot simply treat all knowledge the programmer possessed before the collaboration or acquired independently of the project as its unrestricted property. The boundary among the individual’s pre-existing tools and knowledge, what was created specifically for the project, and components owned by third parties should be established in the contract and technical documentation.
Inventions Arising from Employment or Contract
The Industrial Property Protection Act adopted in 1403 SH also contains a specific rule for inventions arising from employment or contract. Under Article 9, if an invention results from employment or a contract, its economic rights belong to the employer unless the parties agree otherwise. The inventor’s name must be submitted to the registration authority for the certificate to be issued.[1]
A note to the same article also addresses a different situation. If the invention does not fall within the subject matter of the inventor’s contracted activity, or if the contract does not determine the matter, the presumption is that the economic rights belong to the contractor or employee. If, however, the invention was created using the employer’s knowledge, information, technology, tools, or equipment, the right to register the invention and the rights in the certificate remain with the inventor, while the employer receives a non-exclusive right of exploitation.[1]
These details show that the relationship between individual creativity and organizational resources cannot always be resolved with a simple sentence. Sometimes the individual solved the problem but could not have reached the result without the organization’s laboratory, data, or equipment. In other cases, the employer merely provided a working environment and the invention arose outside the individual’s job duties. Professional ethics asks neither side to make the other’s contribution invisible; law and contract likewise seek to translate those contributions into identifiable rights.
The 1403 SH Act repealed the earlier Patents, Industrial Designs and Trademarks Registration Act of 1386 SH upon the new Act’s entry into force. Accordingly, current references concerning inventions should be based on the Industrial Property Protection Act of 1403 SH, although under Article 149 the implementing regulations of the former law continue to apply, until new regulations are adopted, only to the extent they are not inconsistent with the new Act.[1]
When Is Information a Trade Secret?
Not all internal information, and not everything a manager would prefer to keep unpublished, is necessarily a trade secret. Article 122 of the Industrial Property Protection Act identifies three main elements of a trade secret: the information must have actual or potential independent economic value or competitive value; it must not be public or readily obtainable by lawful means; and its lawful holder must have taken customary measures to preserve its confidentiality.[1]
Under the same article, engineering, technical, scientific, economic, commercial, and financial information, plans, formulas, maps, processes, software, customer lists, business methods, manufacturing secrets, and unregistered inventions or industrial designs may qualify as trade secrets if the stated conditions are satisfied.[1] Simply labeling a file “confidential” is not enough; value, secrecy, and protective measures must exist together.
Article 123 treats acquisition or disclosure of a trade secret without the owner’s permission as infringement. Article 126 also permits the owner of the secret or authorized persons to transfer exploitation rights and enter into nondisclosure agreements. A note to the same article provides that a person who gives a trade secret to another must inform that person of its commercial and confidential character; otherwise, infringement of the information by a third party will not fall within the provision on trade secret infringement.[1]
This rule does not place responsibility solely on the recipient of information. A business must also know what it regards as confidential, restrict access, inform the people concerned, and state the boundaries of use clearly. Declaring all of a person’s files, conversations, and experiences to be “company secrets” after the relationship has ended is no substitute for a clear confidentiality policy.
In the electronic context, Articles 64 and 65 of the Electronic Commerce Act also address unlawful acquisition or disclosure of businesses’ commercial and economic secrets and include examples such as formulas, software, processes, unpublished writings, financial information, customer lists, and business plans in the definition of electronic trade secrets—subject to independent economic value, non-public status, and reasonable protective efforts.4
Article 75 of the same Act subjects the acquisition or disclosure of trade secrets in electronic transactions, for purposes of competition, gain, or causing loss—including through breach of employment-based duties not to disclose professional secrets or through unauthorized access—to criminal sanctions in the circumstances it specifies.[4] Whether an offense has been committed, whether its statutory elements are present, and what responsibility each person bears depend on the facts of the case and the decision of the competent authority.
Independent Learning and Reverse Engineering Are Not Always Theft
The legal boundaries of trade secrets do more than protect the holder of information; they also define the scope of legitimate competition. Article 124 of the Industrial Property Protection Act excludes from trade secret infringement the independent acquisition of information without violating another person’s trade secret and acquisition through reverse engineering.[1]
This rule matters to the ethics of innovation. Similarity of outcome does not always mean theft. Two teams may independently arrive at similar solutions. Lawful examination of a product offered in the market may also reveal how it works. Healthy competition cannot prohibit all learning, observation, and independent development.
Conversely, independence cannot merely be asserted. If the route to a solution passed through an internal file, a confidential meeting, workplace access, or breach of a contractual duty, calling the result “independent development” does not change its origin. Documenting when an idea formed, early versions, the people involved, and the sources used can play an important role in identifying this boundary.
Inspiration, Adaptation, and Appropriation
No innovation arises in a vacuum. Writers learn from earlier texts, designers observe existing products, engineers use known solutions, and entrepreneurs draw inspiration from the experience of other markets. If every influence were treated as theft, education and progress would stop.
The law on creators’ rights likewise permits quotation from and reference to published works for literary, scientific, technical, educational, critical, and similar purposes, with attribution and within customary limits.[2] This permission does not authorize unlimited reproduction of a work or removal of the creator’s name; “attribution” and “customary limits” are part of the rule itself.
Inspiration is more ethical when it does not conceal its source, breach a confidential sphere, and when it adds something to the path that came before. Appropriation, by contrast, occurs when a person separates another’s ready-made result from its source, removes that source, and presents the achievement as though they had traveled the whole path themselves.
Sometimes a dispute concerns not literal copying of a work but the structure, logic, method, or insight generated through a collaboration. The legal answer in such disputes depends on the details and form of protection, but the ethical question remains clear: without the trust placed in this person, could they have reached the same result by the same route and at the same speed?
Without Trust, Innovation Turns into Concealment
Training, partnership, and product development require information exchange. No team can keep every member ignorant of the logic of the work, its weaknesses, and future plans and still expect genuine creativity. On the other hand, if every piece of information disclosed through collaboration can immediately be used against the same organization, people gradually conceal what they know.
In such an environment, companies build more walls instead of collaborating; masters withhold key experience; partners do not share all relevant information with one another; and workers gain access only to a small part of a process instead of learning deeply. The resulting harm is not limited to the owner of a single idea; the collective capacity to create solutions declines.
The answer is not to close knowledge completely. Excessive protection can also suffocate innovation and turn every movement of people between organizations into a dispute. A healthier route is clear differentiation: what is public, what constitutes an individual’s personal knowledge and skill, what was specifically produced within the project, which data are confidential, and how exploitation rights are divided after the relationship ends.
The Contract Should Speak Before the Achievement Becomes Valuable
Many disputes arise because, at the beginning of a collaboration, people treat discussion of ownership as a sign of distrust. The project begins with friendship, enthusiasm, or oral promises. There is no revenue yet, and no one wants to burden the atmosphere with a heavy contract. But once the result acquires value, the initial silence becomes a field for conflicting interpretations.
A suitable contract should, at minimum, clarify the roles of the participants, pre-existing assets, ownership of new outputs, the scope of confidentiality, rights to use components, modes of publication, attribution, revenue shares, access to data and code, post-termination obligations, and dispute-resolution procedures. The type of contract and required clauses depend on the subject of the collaboration; no single text suits every project.
Nor can a contract make unfairness ethical. A stronger party may use vague or extremely broad clauses to claim all of another person’s past and future knowledge. Real transparency does not mean merely obtaining a signature; the parties must understand which rights they are transferring and the scope of that transfer.
Conversely, someone who accepted a clear confidentiality or ownership agreement cannot dismiss it as a ceremonial formality once the project becomes profitable. A contract’s credibility depends on taking it seriously before a dispute arises, not only when it benefits one party.
Healthy Innovation Is Freedom Accompanied by Due Recognition
The ethics of knowledge does not ask people to forget what they have learned or remain forever under the shadow of a former master, company, or partner. Independence, competition, and the creation of a new path are legitimate rights. The question is what the new path is built upon.
Healthy growth comes from combining what has been learned with independent effort and adding new value. Unhealthy growth begins when trust, confidentiality, the creator’s name, or a partner’s contribution is reduced to an inconvenient obstacle and an individual tries to turn a collective achievement into their own personal history.
Law can define some boundaries through patents, creators’ rights, software protection, and trade secret rules. Contracts can also reduce ambiguity in a relationship. But neither fully replaces due recognition. In many situations, a person who possesses knowledge can do something, while the ethical question remains whether they should do it in that way.
An innovative economy needs people who have both the courage to learn and become independent and an understanding of the boundaries of stewardship; who can compete without denying the path another person traveled; and who can use public knowledge without converting private trust into personal capital.
The next section of the article turns to an environment where many of these conflicts arise: the worker-employer relationship, where power, need, training, confidentiality, productivity, and human dignity are tested alongside one another every day.