Intellectual Property Law for Beginners
Ever wondered what does the terms like Trademarks, Patents, Industrial Designs, Copyrights, Trade Secrets means…
we encounter all this terms in our day-to-day life. sometimes on a mobile phones, sometimes with brand logos and most of the times in news when company A sues Company B for there IP rights.
If you are a startup or an entrepreneur (or you plan to be one of it) it is always good if you keep your Intellectual Property rights in your mind and proceed accordingly..
Without any further story i will quickly start with the terms mentioned above.
A Trademark is a distinctive sign to identify that products or services to consumers originate from a unique source. It is thus related to commercial considerations.
- serve to identify a particular business as a source of goods/services.
- can be define as combination of sign, certain goods and services, a territory
- e.g. — Nokia famous jingle is protected by a trademark
- e.g. — Apple, Coca-Cola, McDonalds etc
- Trademarks can sold or transferred and they can also have co-ownership. Trademarks can be licensed to others, i.e. owner of the trademark, the licensor can permit other third party, the licensee, to commercially use the trademark.
Patents protect technical innovations. In other words,there needs to be a technical effect of the protected innovation over the existing prior art to get a protection by patent.
Patent is a vast topic. You can read more about it in my another article.
https://medium.com/@parasmamgain/patents-784255ff4527
Industrial Designs, on the contrary,protect the visual, ornamental aspects of items. They are related to aesthetic considerations.
- industrial design constitutes the ornamental or aesthetic aspect of an article or product.
- a design can be defined by the outward or visible appearance of the whole or parts of a product,However, no design protection is granted if the features of the appearance of the product are solely dictated by a technical function
- Novelty should be there.
- must have individual character i.e. must give overall different expression as compared to other design with same appearance.
Copyright protects any original production of the human mind in its material form, upon its creation.
Copyright protects any production of human mind however only the expression of an idea can be protected. Ideas and principles are not protected, expression is protected. Same Idea can have different form of expressions.
Types of works include literary work, architectural work, and computer program and softwares.
- Common Law Countries practices Copyright system
e.g. India, UK, US.
A work is original when author has put some skill and effort into creating that work. - Civil Law Countries practices “Driot d’ Auteur” system
e.g. continental Europe, some African countries, and Central and South American countries.
In “Driot d’Auteur” the expression a work is original if it is the expression of the author’s personality.
And don’t forget that the Expression has to be “Original”.
Trade secrets, or secret know-how, is valuable information which is kept secret, thus giving its owner an advantage in business.
- Information has economic value from being unknown.
- Information must be kept secret, i.e. this information should not be known/accessible easily.
- Owner of a trade secret must be able to demonstrate reasonable efforts to maintain the secrecy.
Always consider if your trade secret is patentable or not, because if somehow someone else patents your trade secrets than they will be the actual owner of your secret and not you.
Signing confidentiality agreements with business partners whenever confidential information is disclosed, these are the so-called Non-Disclosure Agreements, or NDAs.
Innovation in a product can be simultaneously protected by different IP rights.
e.g. Trademarks for commercial aspects,
industrial designs and copyright for aesthetic aspects,
and patents for technical aspects, plus copyright for software.
Brief History :
This is said to be originated from England 14th century. It started by allocating a part of the public domain to private person so that this can be exploited for the well being of the common people.
These privileges were made public through the so-called litterae patentes in English open letters. Due to various pros and cons of these open letters another law was passed .
An essential law, the Statute of Monopolies, in 1624.Under this statute, open letters could only be granted to first and true inventors. This was the origin of patent law.
Patents are not privileges but they are the rights of the first and true inventors which should be used for the benefit of the society.
Previously, all developed countries used to have there own IP Laws, but it was not possible for the nationals of a country to get protection in other countries.
Difficulties arise when inventors were not able to protect there inventions in the foreign countries or outside their state of inventions. To overcome the above challenge the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property came into picture.
Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, signed in Paris, France, on 20 March 1883, was one of the most important intellectual property treaties.
This treaty gave two main principles which are worth to remember:
(a) National Treatment : each contracting state must grant the same protection to nationals of other contracting states as it grants to its own nationals.
(b) Right of priority : This right means that on the basis of the regular first application filed in one contracting state, the applicant may apply for protection in any of the other contracting states within a certain period of time which is 12 months (patents an utility models) and 6 months (trademarks and industrial designs)
More information will be shared on Patents. In case of suggestions/ improvements feel free to reply/comment.
