The level of perception, awareness, and behavior on intellectual property protection: A study of the emerging country

Abstract

Emerging economies are facing problems in the administration and compliance with intellectual property protection in their countries. The IP term is now much more familiar to the public, but it is not well understood completely in a lawful way. The public is misinformed (or, at best, under-informed) about IP leading to higher levels of infringement as well as reducing the use and value of IP. Our study aimed to determine the level of perceptions, awareness, and behavior (PAB) on IP Protection of the medical technology students with the cross-sectional on-line survey on 795 students by electronic European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) questionnaire. The overall level of PAB was very high, greater than three quarters. The demographic factors related significantly to right PAB on IP protection were sex (female higher than male) and residency (other cities higher than Ho Chi Minh City). Only the awareness had the covariance with the behavior in structural equation modeling (SEM) model with a significant coefficient of 0.55. We should focus on an education program to increase the right awareness, then it would improve the right behavior on intellectual property protection in students who are living in the emerging countries.