INTRODUCTION
When a person brings out his/her creativity be it through art, objects, writing, music, etc. He solely has a right over it and it becomes his own property. This is exactly what is meant by intellectual property rights. A person has full ownership of his creativity and nobody can copy or reuse it without the owner’s permission.
LAWS RELATED TO INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS IN INDIA
Laws relating to intellectual property rights were created for the protection of people’s original work and to assure their safety to bring out their work for the benefit of society.
Intellectual property rights can be classified as:
Trademarks
Trademarks are governed by the Trade Marks Act, 1999. A trademark is any symbol, design, name that identifies any product or an organization. Such as Coca-Cola, TATA, etc. Trademark is a mark under which a person can trade. It is intended to prevent any sort of confusion in the market as well as to exclusively protect the product identity. Registered trademarks may be identified by the ‘®’ symbol. (It is illegal to use the ® symbol or state that the trademark is registered until the trademark has in fact been registered).
Trademarks need to be registered but firstly it becomes very crucial to undergo the process of the trademark search. This helps the person to know whether there exist similar trademarks and it also gives him forewarning of the possibility of trademark litigation. Further, a person can file a trademark application. Trademark application is then examined and published in case anybody objects to the registration of the same and finally, the registration certificate is granted. a trademark can be renewed perpetually after 10 years.
Copyright
We all must have come across copyright infringement warnings be it over an article, photographs, poems, paintings, and many more. Copyrights are the rights that people have over their artistic and literary work. Copyright is governed by Copyright Act, 1957. Copyright in works which was published before the act came into force can also be registered. Published as well as unpublished work can be registered. As far as unpublished work is concerned, a copy of the manuscript has to be sent along with the application for affixing the stamp of the copyright.
Patents
When a person invents something original using his creativity, efforts, and brain, he should be given an exclusive right over it. The patent is a right granted to a person for an invasion and also protects against the unauthorized implementation of the invention. Patents are governed by The Patents Act, 1970 (amended in 2005). Examples of some invasions are steel kidneys invented by Nils Alwall, a pen with a scanner invented by Christer Fåhraeus, etc. to register a patent, an invention must be disclosed to a professional. After necessary research, drafting procedures, examinations, and objections (if any) patent gets registered.
Design rights
Smartphones or buildings that we come across have unique designs. Design rights protect the shape of a product, decorative patterns, graphic symbols, or anything that has an individual character. Design rights are governed by the Design Act of 2000 (amended in the years 2008 and 2014). No design is registerable if it is offensive. To register a design an application may be applied to the authorities mentioning the name, address, nationality, and details of the design, etc.
Trade secrets
A trade secret is any process or practice that makes a product unique and no one other than a company producing the product knows about it. The recipe of Coca-Cola, Starbucks coffee, MacDonald’s burger is not known to people in general. This can be categorized as trade secrets. There does not exist specific legislation in India for the protection of trade secrets but trade secrets are protected on the basis of a contractual obligation or breach of confidence.
VIOLATION OR INFRINGEMENT OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS
When a person uses someone else’s intellectual property, he is said to have infringed on intellectual property rights. Civil and criminal remedies mentioned under Trademarks Act, 1999, Copyrights Act, 1957, Patents Act, 1970, Designs Act, 2001, etc. are of utmost importance for the enforcement of intellectual property rights.
Civil remedies can be in the form of injunction, an award for costs and damages, Anton pillar orders which permit the plaintiff’s (the one who files a complaint) counsel to enter the infringer’s premises and seize evidence of infringement, tracing orders where an infringer can be ordered to provide details like from where he got his supplies of infringing goods.
To talk about the criminal remedies, Section 63 of copyrights act, 1957 and chapter XII of trademarks act, 1999 mentions imprisonment which can go as high as up to 3 years, and fine, if necessary, may range between 50,000- 2,00,000 rupees. In case of infringement of patents, a person may be asked to pay the fine which may extend to one lakh rupees or triple the amount of actual damages suffered by the patent holder.
REFERENCES:
https://copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/intellectual_property
Aishwarya Says:
I have always been against Glorifying Over Work and therefore, in the year 2021, I have decided to launch this campaign “Balancing Life”and talk about this wrong practice, that we have been following since last few years. I will be talking to and interviewing around 1 lakh people in the coming 2021 and publish their interview regarding their opinion on glamourising Over Work.
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