Intellectual property pertains to any original creation of the human intellect such as artistry, literary, technical, or scientific creation. Intellectual property rights refer to the legal right given to the inventor or creator to protect its invention or creation for certain period of time. These legal rights confer an exclusive right to the inventor, or his assignee to fully utilize his invention for a given period of time. It is also been conclusively established that the intellectual labor associated with the innovation should be given due importance so that public good emanates from it. Originally only patents, trademark, and industrial design were as ‘Industrial property’ but now the term ‘Intellectual property’ has much wider meaning. IPR enhances technology advancement in following ways;
1. It provides a mechanism for handling infringement, piracy, and unauthorized use.
2. It provides pool of information to general public since all forms of IP are published except in case of trade secret
IP Protection can be sought of a variety of intellectual effort including;
a. Patents
b. The industrial design relates to a feature of any shape, configuration, surface pattern, a composition of lines and colors applied to an article whether 2D.
c. Trademark relate to any mark, name or logo, under which the trade is conducted for any product or service and by which the manufacturer or service provider is identified. Trademark can be bought, sold and licensed.
d. Copyright relates to the expression of ideas in material form and includes literary, musical or dramatic etc. work.
e. A geographical indication is indicated are an indication, which identifies as good as originating in the territory where a given quality, reputation or characteristic of the good is essentially attributable to its geographical origin.
Intellectual property (IP) is a term that describes a number of distinct types of intangible assets. IP protection allows a rights holder to exclude others from interfering with or using the property right in specified ways. The main forms of IP are patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets. Each type of IP protection is different, varying in the subject matter that can be covered, a timeframe of protection, and total expense. Although some inventions may be covered by multiple types of IP protection, it is important to consider a number of business and legal factors before selecting the best protection strategy. Some technologies require strong IP protection to commercialize, but unnecessary costs can derail bringing a product to market. IP departments of organizations weigh these various considerations and perform essential IP protection functions. This primer introduces researchers to the main forms of IP and its legal aspects.
