Intellectual property rights meaning

Intellectual property which is shortly termed as “IP” is the creation and discovery of the mind or thought like inventions or artistic works or designs or symbols or images, etc used in commerce. It is the actual product of the human intellect.

 

What are intellectual property rights?

 

Intellectual property rights or IPR are way similar to property rights. Intellectual property rights allow the owner to completely benefit from the product belongs to the owner that was initially an idea or concept developed. Intellectual property rights initially began in northern Italy during the Renaissance era. Later times many counties have issued regulating laws for Intellectual property rights or IPR. There were two conventions signed having the basics of the IPR system signed i.e. Paris conventions (protection for the industrial property – 1883) & Berne convention (Protection of the literary and artistic works – 1886).

 

Types of Intellectual property

 

There are four types of divisions of intellectual property rights or IPR. They are-

• Patent
• Trademark
• Copyright
• Trade secrets

 

Patent

 

A patent is made to prevent any invention or creation from being created or sold or used by the other party without consent. Different categories fall under the MSME named Utility, Design, and Plant.

 

Trademark

 

A trademark is used to identify particular goods or services provided by a company easily. Example: Logos like Facebook, Mc Donald’s, etc. It may come in the form of text or phrase or symbol or sound or smell or color scheme. It can protect a set of products.

 

Copyright

 

Copyright only covers the tangible forms of the original creation or works like art, music, soft codes, etc. the owner has the ability to sell or publish or reproduce any literary, music, artistic, dramatic, etc created by the author.

 

Trade secret

 

These are some kind of secrets of a business. Trade secrets are proprietary systems, formulas, strategies, or other information too which are very confidential. It is not meant for any kind of unauthorized commercial use by others.

 

The Schemes for assisting MSMEs for Intellectual Property Rights

 

To enhance the competitiveness of the Small and Medium Enterprises or Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises National Manufacturing Competitiveness Programme or NMCP was introduced. The motive of this scheme is to enhance the awareness of the Micro, Small, and medium Enterprises or MSME about its intellectual property rights or IPR to take a move for protecting the ideas or business strategies.

 

Intellectual property rights in India recognized under the statute are:

 

• The Patents Act, 1970;
• The Trade Marks Act, 1999;
• The Copyright Act, 1957;
• The Designs Act, 2000;
• The Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration & Protection) Act, 1999;
• The Semiconductor Integrated Circuits Layout Design Act, 2000;
• The Biological Diversity Act, 2002;
• The Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers' Rights Act, 2001.

 

Classification of property rights

 

Intellectual property rights may be divided into two main divisions, they are: (i) Copyright and rights related to copyright, (ii) Industrial property.

 

(i) Copyright and rights related to copyright

 

The rights of the authors of literary and artistic works like books and other writings, musical compositions, paintings, sculptures, computer programs, and films are protected by copyright protection(a minimum of 50 years after the author’s death).

 

(ii) Industrial property

 

The specific trademarks differentiate it as the goods or services of one undertaking from those of other undertakings. The geographical indications identified as good as originating in a place. A given characteristic of the goods is necessarily attributable to its actual geographical origin.
The Other type of industrial property gets the protection primarily for stimulating their innovations, designs, and the creations of the technology.