Intellectual properties can be divided into two groups namely; Industrial Property and Copyright. Industrial property can be further divided into four groups that are patent, industrial designs, trademark and geographical locations. Patent is basically a monopoly granted for public disclosure of an invention. Section 2(j) of the Indian Patent Act defines the invention as a new product or process that should have an inventive step and should be capable of industrial application. Section 2(m) of the same Act defines patent as what is given for any invention. Patent can be comprehensively defined as a statutory privilege that is granted by the government to the inventors or to the person deriving his/her rights from the inventor, for some fixed years in order to exclude any other person from manufacturing, using or selling that product or process. Section 53 of the Indian Patent act fixes the years of privilege as twenty and after that it becomes ‘off patent’.
There are three tests for patentability i.e. to ensure if patent could be granted to a product or process. Those tests are as follows:
1. Novelty: The product or the process should not have been disclosed anywhere in the world. It should be a new innovation. The first sale of any product or process end novelty.
2. Utility: The product or process should have the capability to be used commercially. It should be from the field of technology i.e. it should have come out of engineering or applied sciences.
3. Inventiveness: The product or process should have a sense of creativity. It does not mean the ordinary creativity of already existing resources but an extraordinary creativity to invent something new.
Difference between Process Patents and Product Patents
The product patents are given to the final product whereas the process patent is granted for the very process used to make the product. This means that granting process patent opens the doors for making the same product through some other process. The process patents provide less protection for the inventors as new processes could be found by reverse engineering and with less investment. That is why TRIPS prefer the product patents over process patents. While government of India still argues for the process patents as they reduce monopoly over the market and this is essential for the greater development of the country as whole. Process patents are mainly given in food and pharmaceutical industries.
Legislative History
The first patent statute in the world was established in the Republic of Venice as ‘The Venetian Patent Statute of March 19, 1474’. In India, the first statute was brought by the British Government in 1911. The first patent statute of free India came up in 1970 as ‘The Indian Patent Act’. This Act aimed at establishing fast track mechanism to dispose of appeals, to protect biodiversity and traditional knowledge, to deal with public health emergency and to revoke patents in public interest and on security considerations. India also came up with the Patent Rules in 1972 and later joins World Trade Organization in 1995. In 2005, The Patent Amendment Act was passed to incorporate provisions according to the TRIPS guidelines.
Aishwarya Says:
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