Intellectual Property Rights

 INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS(IPR)

IPR are the legal rights given to the manufacturer of any art, scientific theory, etc. to protect their invention to be reproduced by someone else. These legal rights provide an exclusive right to the manufacturer to make full and monopolistic use of his invention for a particular time period. This legal right prohibits other from using the invention without the prior consent of the person who have legal right of it. IPR is an effective tool to protect the effort, time and monetary investment of the holder by providing him exclusive right over his invention. The objective of IPR is to encourage creativity of human mind and promote economic growth by promoting healthy competition.

World Intellectual Property Organisation(WIPO) of UN is the Central Organisation for the protection of Intellectual Property Laws . Article 2 of WIPO states that “Intellectual Property shall include the rights relating to literary, artistic and scientific works, inventions in all fields of human endeavour, scientific discoveries, industrial designs, trademarks, service marks and commercial names and designations, protection against unfair competition, and all the other rights resulting from intellectual activity in the industrial, scientific, literary or scientific fields.”

KINDS OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

The subject of IP is very broad. Intellectual property can be basically classified into following types:

1. Copyright: Ideas are not protected by copyright. Instead, it only applies to "perceptible" forms of creation and original work, such as art, music, architectural drawings, or even software codes. The copyright holder has the exclusive right to sell, publish, and/or reproduce his literary, musical, dramatic, artistic, or architectural work.

In the modern world, copyright law protects not only the traditional beneficiaries of copyright, the individual writer, composer, or artist but also the publication required for the creation of work by major cultural industries, film; broadcast and recording industries; and computer and software industries.

2. Patent: Patent law recognises a patent holder's exclusive right to profit commercially from his invention. A patent is a special right to the person who invents a new theory/thing to manufacture, use, and sell the invention, if certain legal conditions are met. The term "exclusive right" refers to the fact that no one can manufacture, use, or market an invention without the permission of the patent holder. This exclusive patent right is only valid for a limited time.

A patent is often used to prevent the party other than the holder from creating, selling, or using an invention without permission. When people think of intellectual property rights protection, patents are the most common type of intellectual property rights that come to mind. The term "exclusive right" means that no person other than the inventor can manufacture, use, or marketize an invention without the permission of the patent holder. This exclusive patent right is only valid for a limited time.

3. Trademark: Trademarks are another well-known method of protecting intellectual property rights. A trademark is a distinctive sign that allows consumers to easily identify the specific goods or services that a company provides. McDonald's logo, apple logo, the Facebook logo, and so on are some examples. A trademark can be text, a phrase, a symbol, a sound, a smell, or a colour scheme. In contrast to patents, a trademark can protect a group or class of products or services rather than just one product or process. It is a specific sign used to publicise the source of goods and services in relation to goods and services and to differentiate goods and services from other entities.

4. Geographical Indication: It is a name or sign used on certain products that corresponds to the product's geographic location or origin. The use of geographical location may also act as a certification that the product which has geographical indication possesses certain qualities according to the traditional method. Geographical indication is commonly used in the production of Darjeeling tea and basmati rice.

5. Plant patent: A plant patent protects new types of plants that have been asexually reproduced. This indicates that the plant was reproduced through seeds, cuttings, or other nonsexual means. It also cannot be a tuber-propagated plant or a plant that has not yet been cultivated. The state has protected a new plant breeder variety. To be eligible for plant diversity protection, diversity must be novel, distinct, and similar to existing varieties, and its essential characteristics must be uniform and stable, as defined by the Plant Protection and Protection Act of 2001.

Intellectual property rights are monopoly rights that grant their holders temporary privileges to exploit income rights derived from cultural expressions and inventions. There must be compelling reasons for a society to grant such privileges to some of its citizens, and thus proponents of these rights provide us with three widely accepted justifications for protecting today's inter-global intellectual property rights.