Intellectual property rights

Submitted toMrs.Vishakha Aggrawal

Submitted byAnant Aryan F.P.-II Batch - II

Introduction to Intellectual Property Right

Intellectual property refers to creations of the mind: inventions; literary and artistic works; and symbols, names and images used in commerce. Intellectual property is divided into two categories:

Industrial Property includes patents for inventions, trademarks, industrial designs and geographical indications.

Copyright covers literary works (such as novels, poems and plays), films, music, artistic works (e.g., drawings, paintings, photographs and sculptures) and architectural design. Rights related to copyright include those of performing artists in their performances, producers of phonograms in their recordings, and broadcasters in their radio and television programs.

Patent
A patent is an exclusive right granted for an invention a product or process that provides a new way of doing something, or that offers a new technical solution to a problem. A patent provides patent owners with protection for their inventions. Protection is granted for a limited period, generally 20 years.

Copyright
Copyright laws grant authors, artists and other creators protection for their literary and artistic creations, generally referred to as works. A closely associated field is related rights or rights related to copyright that encompass rights similar or identical to those of copyright, although sometimes more limited and of shorter duration. The owner of the copyright has the exclusive right to copy it, to decide how it will be published and distributed, to keep it from being modified against his or her wishes, and to profit from it.

The copyright holder also has the right to give others a license to use the work in specific and limited ways.

Trade-mark
A trademark is a distinctive sign that identifies certain goods or services produced or provided by an individual or a company. Its origin dates back to ancient times when craftsmen reproduced their signatures, or marks, on their artistic works or products of a functional or practical nature.

Over the years, these marks have evolved into todays system of trademark registration and protection. The system helps consumers to identify and purchase a product or service based on whether its specific characteristics and quality as indicated by its unique trademark meet their needs.

Case study
SagA art and craft infringement

SagA is a UK-based company specialising in the design and manufacturing of toys, arts and crafts. It was founded more than 60 years ago and became a leading designer and producer of toys in the UK. Although the companys main market was the UK, it had sales success in the US, Australia, Japan and Russia. Though SagA had registered its trademark and held several design patents in China, the company was confronted with many difficulties in protecting and enforcing their IP rights.

The major difficulty in protecting IPR was that the company regularly produced several new designs every season and it was simply too costly and the life cycles of the new toy popularity was too short to patent all new designs. SagA also found that enforcement based on copyright infringement was a very difficult process to pursue and possibly even more expensive than registering design patents for all new designs. In addition, the different types of copies, especially the ones that were not identical (i.e., knockoffs and look-a-likes) made enforcement of IP rights more difficult because they were technically not infringing on SagAs design patents.

Due to the major loss of turnover from infringing activities, SagA decided to formulate a new IPR strategy to combat look-alike products and blatant infringement of its design patents. . Upon discussing its issues with a trusted patent lawyer, SagA decided to produce only a few iconic products a year largely featuring its trademark, rather than several, generic new toy designs per season.

It also began to work its IPR strategy into an integral part of its business strategy, mainly by pursing its R&D with caution by working in non-disclosure agreements into its contracts with all employees and strategically choosing which designs were most important to the livelihood of the company and filing applications to protect them immediately.

Conclusion

select most important assets and protect them strategically, as registering all designs we may not have be the most costeffective way to protect our IP. Exercise caution when investing in product development/R&D, where IPR infringement often originates. Building in strict confidentiality clauses for employees and business partners who may be privy to your trade secrets and IP is a helpful way to mitigate IP infringement risks.

Reference

http://www.wipo.org http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/jom/matters/matters-9610.html

www.china-iprhelpdesk.eu

THANK YOU!!