INTELLECTUAL PROPERTIES RIGHTS
Intellectual properties rights(IPR) are the exclusive rights over the use of his/her creation for a certain period given to persons over the creation of their minds, the creations mainly include inventions, literary and artistic works which is beneficial also for other humans. These rights are given under and such rights got importance for the first time in the Paris Convention for the protection of industrial property (1883) and the Berne Convention for the protection of literary and artistic works (1886) which are administered by the world intellectual property organization (WIPO).
NEED OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTIES RIGHTS
Intellectual properties comprise of two distinct forms:
- Literary and artistic works
- Industrial property
LITERARY AND ARTISTIC WORKS
Literary and artistic works include books, paintings, musical compositions, plays, operas, movies, radio/tv programs, performances, and other artistic works. So, for these above-mentioned works, an intellectual property right is provided named as the copyright or we can say that these works of the persons are protected by “copyright” which provides the individual “author” or “artist” the exclusive right to do certain things with an “original work”, including the right to reproduce, publish, perform the work in public, and to make adaptations of it and benefit thereby.
INDUSTRIAL PROPERTY
Industrial property includes some new manufacturing of physical matters which is not been manufactured by anyone before and that is developed especially for commercial purposes. Industrial property includes patented objects, trademarks, industrial designs, trade secrets, layout designs of integrated circuits, and geographical indications.
PATENT
The patent may be defined as an intellectual property right given to the creators to have protected exclusive use of that new invention for a particular period for making, using, or selling a new, useful, non-obvious invention. And if any person has a patent for anything then no other person can make a similar copy of that newly-invented thing without the permission of that person who has access to the right of the patent. And also, the patent in law is supposed to be a property right so it can be gifted, inherited, assigned, sold, or licensed same as other properties. The right to patent is given for both products as well as the process which an item is gone through while making it. The patent is given for 20 years.
TRADEMARK
Trademark consist of any sign, or collection and combination of signs which can be in any design, letters, colours, numerals, figurative elements, the shape of goods, or their packaging may include personal names due to which it differs from the goods and services of one person from those of another. Trademarks include service marks, collective marks, and may also include certification marks.
TRADE SECRETS
Trade secrets are the intellectual property rights that are given to the right holder not to disclose the reasonable steps like some formula, practice, process, design, and the pattern used by the right holder to make that particular good or article, including the use of confidentiality agreements for business partners and employees so that the other competitor will not obtain any advantage of such disclosure which would affect his/her business.
GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATIONS
The intellectual property right, geographical indication, is granted to those people who have the right to use the indication to prevent its use by a third party or person whose product does not conform to the applicable standards and originality. A geographical indication is a sign used on a product that has a specific geographical origin and possesses particular qualities or a reputation or several other characteristics that are due to that origin. To function as a GI, a sign must identify a product as originating in a given place. So, no other person can use this GI for the thing which does not originate from that place for where the geographical indication right has been granted. Till now more than 350 GI has been granted and the first GI was provided to Darjeeling tea in 2004-05. Some examples of geographical indications are leather toys, Bagh prints, bell metalware of Madhya Pradesh, Kutch embroidery, and sankheda furniture of Gujarat, etc.
INDUSTRIAL DESIGN
Industrial design right is provided notto copy the shape, configuration, pattern, or ornamentation of the article by any other person or company but this right is not applied to the method or principle of construction.
ISSUES IN LAW OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- One of the major issues of intellectual property rights is that there is a violation of these rights is on a very large scale.
- There is a lack of awareness among people and they don’t have enough information and knowledge about intellectual property rights.
- Another issue is that, as we all know India is a developing country, so everyone wants that the cost is low and not very expensive but due to IPR, the cost of that product increases.
- Law enforcement agencies do not take it seriously and do not work properly for the applicability of enacted laws and rights. Like the new movies and files can easily be downloaded at a very low cost due to which there is huge loss occurs to the producers. And also led to the violation of intellectual property rights.
- There is a cause of debate between traditional knowledge and granted patent. Like in India, turmeric and Tulsiare used to cure injuries and it is a very traditional concept but now America on research on turmeric states that it can be used as an antiseptic and want to take patent on this new invention but according to Indians it is not a new invention because it used by us from many years.
- Patent fees are very high and it takes too much time to complete all the processes to have the patent on a certain article. The process of granting patents by the government departments is very slow and it takes many years due to which huge loss is faced by the inventor.
STEPS TAKEN BY THE GOVERNMENT TO PROTECT INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS
NATIONAL IPR POLICY 2016: This policy was approved by the union cabinet on 12th May 2016 as a vision document for the development of IPRs in Indiabymaking a layout of the future roadmap for the IPRs in India. This policy aims to recognize all the innovations and creations that are going on in India by the citizens and use these creations towards a better and brighter future for all. It is based on the theme “creative India; InnovativeIndia”.
ONLINE IP NANI MASCOT: Minister of Commerce and Industry Shri Suresh Prabhu launched an IP Naniin which an animated short clip is created to spread awareness about intellectual property rights because the protection of IPRs is critical for building a knowledge-based society and their strict implementation is also equally required.
CIPAM: A new department is created named CIPAM (cell for IPR promotion and management) under the ministry of the department for the promotion of industry and internal trade ministry of commerce and industry, the government of India. Its objective is to spread awareness about the patents and to promote and development of IPR in the country.
STARTUP POLICY AND ADOPTION OF GLOBAL CONVENTION: The government of India has adopted a policy to make it easy to commercial the new inventions and signed different global conventions like the WIPO convention and various treaties.
CONCLUSION
So, despite initiating various schemes and policies by the government, various challenges are still faced in our country, and violation of intellectual properties rights is one of the major challenges in India. As we all see in the market, some sellers make the same logo with some minute changes which are not easily recognized by the consumers and sell fake products by using the geographical indications which led to the violation of these rights. So strict actions and laws must be there for the violation of IPR because the proper following of the IP system in the country will act as efficient increase and development of the economy of the country and also led to the social and cultural well-being. Government steps of starting national IP policy and signing of different treaties of WIPO will help to glorify the image of India globally due to which over the last few years, the rank of India in the global innovation index is also improved.
Author(s) Name: Sakshi (Institute of Law, Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra)
