INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW

Intellectual property law

           Intellectual property refers to any Intellectual creation of mind. Intellectual Property laws give people the right to own and profit from their artistic, scientific and technological creations for a designated period of time.

The Intellectual Property is divided in to tangible and intangible properties.  The intellectual properties, namely patents, copyright, Industrial design and trade secret are intangible/Movable properties. Personal properties like land, buildings are tangible / immovable properties. Inventors are granted to a variety of intangible assets, such as ideas, business methods, inventions, musical piece, literary work, artistic works, discoveries, words, phrases, symbols, and designs.

Again the Intellectual Property law may be divided into industrial property and literary property. The industrial property are patents, trademark, copyright, Industrial design, trade secret and layout design. The literary property may be classified as copyright and neighboring rights. The neighboring rights are performer's rights and broadcasting rights. The copyright covers artistic, musical, dramatic and literary works. 

Patent is a monopoly right given by the government to an inventor for a period of twenty years. Trademark is a unique sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization or other legal entity to identify  the products or services.

Copyright relates to original work of literary, artistic, dramatic or musical work, Cinematographic films, Sound Recording and Software program. A related right refers to the category of rights granted to performers, phonogram producers and broadcasters. A design refers to the features of shape, configuration, pattern, ornamentation or composition of lines or colors applied to any article. 

Geographical Indication is an indication which identifies goods as agricultural goods, natural goods or manufactured goods as originating, or manufactured in the territory of country, or a region or locality in that territory. Trade secret is any information that is not generally known, that will give a business advantage, or is commercially useful. 

Layout design means a layout of transistors and other circuitry elements and includes lead wires connecting such elements and expressed in any manner in semiconductor integrated circuit

The scope of Intellectual Property  Law is to protect others from copying or taking unfair advantage of the work or reputation of another and provides repay for their infringement. The protection is vital for industrial, commercial and economic development. The intellectual property can be assigned, mortgaged, and licensed. For intellectual property protection, it has to be registered with respective intellectual property office for limited duration. After the expiry of the period, it becomes public property and anybody is free to use it. The intellectual properties rights are private rights are private rights.

Intellectual property grants exclusive rights to intellectual creations. The exclusive rights allow owners of intellectual property to reap monopoly rights. These monopoly rights provide a financial incentive for the creation of Intellectual Property and pay associated research and development costs. 

The intellectual property law is territorial in operation. The primary objective of an Intellectual Property Law is to encourage inventions by promoting their protection and utilization so as to contribute to the development of Industries, which in turn contributes to the promotion of technological innovation and to the transfer and dissemination of technology. To protect the intellectual property law, various International conventions, treaties and agreement have been entered in to the countries.