Legal and Ethical Leadership and Management
La’ Trice Yharbrough
February 17, 2015

There are a lot of ups and downs in business especially if you are a large or well-known company. You must protect yourself and your company from many things so that you will be successful and remain that way. There are people who will try and bring you down. Most of the time they appear to be friendly or as though they are trying to help you climb to the top. Especially the people that work for the company or someone close the owner or someone high in power.
In the case of Normandale used Mathis Inc. design’s without permission therefore making it illegal for them to sell them. Counterfeiting, IE knockoff merchandise is a form of stealing from the original designer because someone is taking something that is not there’s and selling it for a lower price and making a profit from it. Normandale committed an unethical crime because he stole someone else’s property and used them as his own while disregarding the creators wishes to cease and desist.
Mathis Inc. is protected under several laws actually. They are protected under several laws actually. The first is the Copyright law which says that “the original creative work such as artwork, pictures, music, movies, writing, architecture, dance, and even software “are protected under such law. Secondly there is the Trademark law which protects “Brand names, logos, slogans, and anything else that identifies and distinguishes products and service.”
Both Copyright and Trademark laws apply to this situation because Mathis’s designs in itself were stolen and used illegally as well as taking pictures of the actual merchandise and copying it in its entirety.
Mathis has lost profits because of the damage Normandale committed and in turn loss of revenue means the lower need for a certain number of employees. This means that Mathis will have to terminate employees/ lay off to be able to continue stay in business but at a low profit level. Normandale making fake clothing for personal gain at a very low price has caused several issues. Mathis would have to either lower their prices which will make them loose revenue, or have to come up with a less costly line that will make up for the revenue lost initially.
Businesses do not have responsibilities because they are not people but a corporation built of many people. These people have different responsibilities which all have the same end result and that is to create revenue and to continue making revenue. “Patent infringement occurs when a defendant, without authorization from patentee, usurps the patentee’s rights by making, using, or selling the patented invention.” (Argosy, 2014) The Lanham Act covers this case. It is called the Trademark Act of 1946 is a federal statute that protects trademarks, service marks, and unfair competition. There are several laws that protect the people and businesses from unfair competition and copyright infringement. The Law if Unfair Competition covers all creations both physical, intellectual and