Article by Muskan singh at lexcliq
Intellectual property rights
Intellectual property is nothing but a product of human intellect sort of intellectual property they possess, so IPR deals with laws to protect and enforce rights of the creators and owners of inventions, writing, music, designs and other works which is called as “intellectual property.” . Intellectual property rights are given to persons for their intellectual inventions, ideas and creativity. IPR gives the creator an exclusive right over the use of their own creation for a certain period of time. This restricts anyone else to plagiarise, steal or use the original owners intellectual property without their consent, permission or knowledge. Intellectual properties include both tangible and intangible creations of a person. IPR is divided into different categories such as Copyright, Design, Trademark and Patent. IPR has various rights related to patents, copyright, industrial design rights, trademarks, plant variety rights, trade dress, geographical indications.
Intellectual property rights of India
- The Patents Act, 1970
> An act that grants patent rights for inventions or product or an article of manufacture that are able to satisfy the patent eligibility requirements of having novelty and are capable of industrial application such as machinaries, engines, etc. Basically any sort of tangible intellectual property can get patent rights. There are four types of patents, which includes utility patent, provisional patent, design patent, plant patent. A patent right lasts for a time period of maximum 20 years, for which one has to pay renewal charges annually till 20 years of completion as per the regulations.
Defined as –
“any useful art, manufacture, engine, machine, or device, or any improvement there on not before known or used.”
“a new product or process involving an inventive step and capable of industrial application.”
- The Trade Marks Act, 1999
> Indian trademark law protects trademark rights of their lawfully registered owners for any sort of product, name, logo, design, pattern, sound, tagline, symbols, surname, etc.“trademark means a mark that represents their work graphically and which is capable of distinguishing the goods or services of one person from those of others and may include the shape of goods, their packaging and combination of colours.”
Trademarks last for a tenure of 10 years and one has to renew their Trademarks in every 10 years as per Indian Trademark laws.
- The Copyright Act, 1957
> Copyright protects all the artistic intellectual work by a person. It mainly includes paintings, sculptures, drawings (including a diagram, a map, a chart or plan), sketches, an engraving, photographs, architectural work or artistic crafts, dramatic work, literary work like computer programmes, tables, compilations and computer databases), musical work as well as graphical notations, sound recording and cinematographic films, etc. Copyrights last for a long time such as for orignal literary work, musical or any sort of artistic work it lasts for lifetime if the owner is alive and if not then till 60 years from his demise. For other publications, sound recordings and films it lasts for 60 years from the date of publication.
- The Designs Act, 2000
> An Act to consolidate and amend the law relating to the protection of designs. It has a complete code in itself and protection under it is wholly statutory in nature. The main aim and objective of the act is to protect new or original designs from plagiarism or to cause loss to the proprietors. It provides effective protection for registered designs abd makes registration of documents compulsory.
