Unit IV Intellectual Property Rights - Compress
Unit IV Intellectual Property Rights - Compress
Unit IV Intellectual Property Rights - Compress
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Anna University
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Research methodology and ipr (Rm4151)
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The study of Patent system in India in light of the patent cooperation treaty
A164241580937
UNIT IIIUNIT
DATA Analysis AND
IV INTELLECTUAL Reporting
PROPERTY RIGHTS
Intellectual Property – The concept of IPR, Evolution and development of concept of IPR,
IPR development process, Trade secrets, utility Models, IPR & Bio diversity, Role of WIPO
Preview text
and WTO in IPR establishments, Right of Property, Common rules of IPR practices, Types
and Features of IPR Agreement, Trademark, Functions of UNESCO in IPR maintenance.
UNIT IV 4.1
INTELLECTUAL
Intellectual Property
PROPERTY RIGHTS
Intellectual Property – The
There is third typeconcept of IPR,
of property what Evolution
we call intellectual and development
property. It is the “ of
concept ofproperty
IPR, IPR development
created process,
by application of human mind”.Trade secrets, utility Models, IPR & Bio
Intellectual property, very broadly, means the legal property which results from intellectual
activity in the industrial, scientific and artistic fields. Countries have laws to protect intellectual
property for two main reasons. One is to give statutory expression to the moral and economic
rights of creators in their creations and such rights of the public in access to those creations.
The second is to promote, as a deliberate act of government policy, creativity and the
dissemination and application of its results and to encourage fair trading which would
contribute to economic and social development.
Generally speaking, IP law aims at safeguarding creators and other producers of intellectual
goods and services by granting them certain time- limited rights to control the use made of
those productions. These rights do not apply to the physical object in which the creation may
be embodied but instead to the intellectual creation as such. IP is traditionally divided into two
branches: “industrial property and copyright”. The convention establishing the World
Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), concluded in Stockholm on July 14, 1967 (Art.
2(viii) provides that
“intellectual property shall include rights relating to:
1) literary, artistic and scientific works:
2) performances of performing artists, phonograms and broadcasts;
3) inventions in all fields of human behaviour;
4) scientific discoveries;
5) industrial designs;
6) trademarks, service marks, and commercial names and designations;
7) protection against unfair competition and all other rights resulting from intellectual activity
in industrial scientific, literary or artistic fields”.
The areas mentioned under (1) belong to the copyright branch of intellectual property. The
areas mentioned in (2) are usually called “neighboring rights”, that is, rights neighboring on
copyright. The areas mentioned under 3, 5 and 6 constitute the industrial property branch of
IP. The areas mentioned may also be considered as belonging to that branch.
Scope of Intellectual Property Rights
Intellectual property rights include copyright, patent, trademark, geographic indication of
origin, industrial design, trade secrets, database protection laws, publicity rights laws, laws for
the protection of plant varieties, laws for the protection of semi-conductor chips (which store
information for later retrieval), etc.
There is a conventional mode of classification of intellectual property as industrial property
and copyrights. Industrial properties include inventions (patent), property interest on minor
invention (Utility model certificate) and commercial interests (Trade Marks, trade names,
geographical indications, and industrial design), plant breeder rights, biodiversity, etc.
Patents
A patent is a type of intellectual property right which allows the holder of the right to
exclusively make use of and sale an invention when one develops an invention. Invention is a
new process, machine, manufacture, composition of matter. It is not an obvious derivation of
the prior art (It should involve an inventive step). A person who has got a patent right has an
exclusive right. The exclusive right is a true monopoly but its grant involves an administrative
process.
Copyright
It is an intellectual property which does not essentially grant an exclusive right over an idea
but the expressions of ideas which makes if different from patent law. Patent is related with
invention - technical solution to technical problems. Copyright is a field which has gone with
artistic, literary creativity- creativity in scientific works, audio-visual works, musical works,
software and others. There are neighboring rights. These are different from copyright but
related with it – performers in a theatre, dancers, actors, broadcasters, producers of sound
recorders, etc. It protects not ideas but expressions of ideas as opposed to patent.
Copyright protects original expression of ideas, the ways the works are done; the language
used, etc. It applies for all copyrightable works. Copyright lasts for a longer period of time.
The practice is life of author plus 50 years after his/her life. Administrative procedures are not
required, unlike patent laws, in most laws but in America depositing the work was necessary
and was certified thereon but now it is abolished.
Industrial Design Law
Some call this design right (European) and some call it patentable design, industrial design
(WIPO and other international organization). A design is a kind of intellectual property which
gives an exclusive right to a person who has created a novel appearance of a product. It deals
with appearance: how they look like. Appearance is important because consumers are
interested in the outer appearance of a product. It is exclusively concerned with appearance,
not quality.
The principles which have been utilized in developing industrial design law are from
experiences of patent and copyright laws. It shares copyright laws because the design is artistic.
It shares patent law because there are scientific considerations. Design law subsists in a work
upon registration and communication. It makes them close to patent law since they are also
founded in patent law. Duration is most of the time 20 years like the patent law trademark
Rights law.
Trademarks Rights Law
It is a regime of the law giving protection to graphic representation to words or logos or
depending on the jurisdiction question such as sound or smells which are distinctive in nature
and serve as source identification. There is also a recent phenomenon which is representing
goods in their smell and sound. It is to be found on the goods associated with them. It enables
the customer to identify the goods from others. They serve as a source identifier. Trademarks
perform communication function. Once there is a valid representation, it gives the mark owner
an exclusive right. It begins with registration and publication of the mark. But there are
exceptions which serve what trademarks registered serve which are not registered. It means
they deserve protection even though they are not registered. They exist forever so long as the
good with which they are associated continue to be sold. But they require renewal.
Geographic Indication
It is indications on products of the geographic origin of the goods. It indicates the general
source. The indication relates to the quality or reputation or other characteristics of the good.
For example, “made in Ethiopia” is not influenced by the geographical Indication.
Geographical indications are sometimes called appellations of origin. For example, “Sheno
lega”, “Shampagne” (name of a region in France) are geographical indications.
Trade Secrets
It gives the owner of commercial information that provides a competitive edge the right to keep
others from using such information if the information was improperly disclosed to or acquired
by a competitor and the owner of the information took reasonable precautions to keep it secret.
It protects confidential secrets of some commercial value. The holder of the secret wants this
information to be protected; some protect the holder from an unauthorized disclosure of the
information. A tort law, unfair competition or contract law can protect such information which
is secret /confidential information/. The holder (owner) has to do his/her best to keep the
information secret. Trade secrets exist without registration as it is to make the information
public, for example, the formula of Coca Cola. Information that are protected in trade secrets
can be patentable if they are novel and non obvious. But it is, most of the time, not to make the
secret public. However, their full-fledged IP rights are contestable.
The WIPO Programme in the year 1998-99 budget, were initiated to address the
growing concerns related to the Intellectual Property Rights, of the indigenous knowledge
holders. The Intellectual Property gave rise to duties, specifically for the owner of the IP that
are certain functions to be performed by them, in relation to their work or products. The various
laws that come under the ambit of Intellectual property umbrella did not emerge or evolve
together and they are as a fact, quite dissimilar in many aspects. Thus, the international treaties
and agreements promote the intellectual workers and labours and bring together all the related
laws of IP together.
The Intellectual Property Rights are distinguished from other rights because of the
nature of intangibility. It ensures the Right to Sue or take any legal action against the person,
who gains unauthorised access to his creation or innovation against the property. The scope of
the Intellectual Property Rights is a broad one. They help in balancing the nature of innovator’s
interest and the benefit of the public by, providing them an environment where, innovation,
invention and creativity can flourish to the highest and can benefit all. The Intellectual
Property systems have a common form of internal appeal procedure against the violators of
IPR.
Apart, from the initiatives of Government for training judicial officers in matters such as IPR
matters, the laws are also, updated and amended to provide the efficient speedy trials to the
citizens. Like in India, The Cell for IPR Promotion and Management (CIPAM), which is a
government body works with WIPO and the National Judicial Academy (NJA), India, for
organising training sessions and sensitisation programmes on IPR’s for the High Court and
District Court judges. Thus, ensuring that the law system has a greater understanding on matters
like IPR and its assertion in the society . The National Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Policy,
2016 was a vision project of Indian government, to guide the future developments of the
Intellectual Property and its Rights in the country. It seemed to place an institutional
mechanism for implementation and monitoring of developments in global as well as national
IPR’s.
The main points about trade secret are briefly presented as follows:
1. There is no specific period for trade secret.
For the protection of trade secret, conditions vary from country to country, some
general standards exist which are referred to in Art. 39 of the Agreement on Trade-Related
Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement):
✓ The information must be secret (i.e. it is not generally known among, or readily
accessible to, circles that normally deal with the kind of information in question).
✓ It must have commercial value because it is a secret.
✓ It must have been subject to reasonable steps by the rightful holder of the
information to keep it secret (e.g., through confidentiality agreements).
The "Innovation patent," launched in Australia some time back was introduced as a
result of extensive research into the needs of small and medium-sized enteprises, with the aim
of providing a "low-cost entry point into the intellectual property system."
4.7 IPR & Bio diversity,
In simple terms, the diversity among various life forms within the Biosphere refers to
biodiversity. Biodiversity is the foundation of life on Earth. It is crucial for the functioning of
ecosystems which provide us with products and services without which we cannot live. By
changing biodiversity, we strongly affect human well-being and the well-being of every other
living creature.
Biodiversity is normally classified under 3 major categories:
ecosystem diversity, representing the principal bio geographic regions and habitats;
species diversity, representing variability at the level of families, genera and species; and
genetic diversity, representing the large amount of variability occurring within a species.
Diverse activities and actions have been taken by several stakeholders at local, state, national
and international level to conserve/protect the valuable resource such as biodiversity to draw
the benefits accrued in it for the society.
It is a well-established fact that developing countries are rich in the world’s flora and
fauna and 80 percent of the earth’s terrestrial biodiversity is confined to these countries,
which is the “raw material” for biotechnology, i.e., genes, folk varieties, land races to develop
new varieties by biotechnology. Until the advent of molecular biology and genetic
engineering, the success of plant breeding depended on access to genetic variability within a
species. Genetic engineering has, however, rendered the transfer of genes across sexual
barriers possible and has thus enhanced the economic value of biodiversity.
The developed countries are not rich in biogenetic resources but are better equipped in
research and development. They use the biogenetic resources accessed from the developing
countries. As a result, there is a beginning in the unprotected flow of genetic information
from the developing countries to the capital-rich west, and a protected flow in the reverse
direction mainly through patents and Plant Breeders’ Rights (PBR). It has both visible and
invisible impacts. Genetic erosion is one of the most important invisible impacts that is in the
long run manifested visibly with the loss of biodiversity.
The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) 1992:
Opened for signature at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, and entering into
force in December 1993, the Convention on Biological Diversity is an international treaty for
the conservation of biodiversity, the sustainable use of the components of biodiversity and the
equitable sharing of the benefits derived from the use of genetic resources. The interface
between biodiversity and intellectual property is shaped at the international level by several
treaties and process, including at the WIPO, and the TRIPS Council of the WTO. With 193
Parties, the Convention has near universal participation among countries. The Convention
seeks to address all threats to biodiversity and ecosystem services, including threats from
climate change, through scientific assessments, the development of tools, incentives and
processes, the transfer of technologies and good practices and the full and active
involvement of relevant stakeholders including indigenous and local communities, youth,
NGOs, women and the business community. The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety is a
subsidiary agreement to the Convention. It seeks to protect biological diversity from the
potential risks posed by living modified organisms resulting from modern biotechnology.
The treaty defines biodiversity as "the variability among living organisms from all
sources including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the
ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within species, between
species and of ecosystems."
The Convention reaffirms the principle of state sovereignty, which grants states
sovereign rights to exploit their resources pursuant to their own environmental policies
together with the responsibility to ensure that activities within their own jurisdiction or
control do not cause damage to the environment of other states. The Biodiversity Convention
also provides a general legal framework regulating access to biological resources and the
sharing of benefits arising from their use. India is a party to the Convention on Biological
Diversity (1992).
The Convention on Biological Diversity establishes important principles regarding
the protection of biodiversity while recognizing the vast commercial value of the planet's
store of germplasm. However, the expansion of international trade agreements establishing a
global regime of intellectual property rights creates incentives that may destroy biodiversity,
while undercutting social and economic development opportunities as well as cultural
diversity. The member countries were pressurized to change their IPR laws to conform with
the TRIPS agreement. 12 PP-IPRL&P India also followed the suit by placing in place legal
frameworks for the management of biodiversity and Intellectual property laws. Following
India’s ratification of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) at international level,
the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 was adopted. The Biological Diversity Act aims at
conservation of biological resources and associated knowledge as well as facilitating access
to them in a sustainable manner and through a just process.
4.8 Role of WIPO and WTO in IPR establishments,
g. WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT) deals with the rights of
two kinds of beneficiaries, particularly in the digital environment: (i) performers
(actors, singers, musicians, etc.); and (ii) producers of phonograms (persons or
legal entities that take the initiative and have the responsibility for the fixation of
sounds).
h. WIPO Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic
Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore is, in accordance with its
mandate, undertaking text-based negotiations with the objective of reaching
agreement on a text(s) of an international legal instrument(s), which will ensure
the effective protection of traditional knowledge (TK), traditional cultural
expressions (TCEs) and genetic resources (GRs).
i. The Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) was set up in
the 1998-1999 biennium to examine matters of substantive law or harmonization
in the field of copyright and related rights.
j. Hague System for the International Registration of Industrial Designs provides a
practical business solution for registering up to 100 designs in 74 contracting
parties covering 91 countries, through the filing of one single international
application
k. Lisbon System for the International Registration of Appellations of Origin and
Geographical indications offers a means of obtaining protection for
an appellation of origin or a geographical indication in the contracting
parties through a single registration procedure and one set of fees.
Mention should be made that today WIPO, administers 24 treaties (three of those
jointly with other international organizations) and carries out a rich and varied program of
work, through its member States and secretariat, that seeks to:
• harmonize national intellectual property legislation and procedures,
• provide services for international applications for industrial property rights,
• exchange intellectual property information,
• provide legal and technical assistance to developing and other countries,
• facilitate the resolution of private intellectual property disputes, and
• marshal information technology as a tool for storing, accessing, and using valuable
intellectual property information.
minds. They usually give the creator an exclusive right over the use of his/her
creation for a certain period of time.
OR
Intellectual property rights are like any other property right. They allow creators, or
owners, of patents, trademarks or copyrighted works to benefit from their own work or
investment in a creation.
Forms of Intellectual Property Rights
The Intellectual Property Rights are broadly divided into two groups, viz., Primary
Rights and Sui-generis Rights. These are briefly discussed below:
1. Primary Rights
Primary rights include, Copyrights, Patents, Trademarks, Trade Secret, Trade
names, Domain names, Industrial Designs, Geographical Indications etc.
2. Sui-generis Rights
Sui-generis refers to things of their own kind or things with unique characteristics.
Such rights include Database Rights, Mask work, Plant Breeders Rights, Traditional
Knowledge, Moral Rights and Supplementary Protection Certificate.
proceedings for forfeiture of a patent may be instituted, but only after the expiration of two
years from the grant of the first compulsory license.
Marks
(1) The Paris Convention does not regulate the conditions for the filing and registration of
marks which are therefore determined in each contracting State by the domestic law.
Consequently, no application for the registration of a mark filed by a national of a contracting
State may be refused, nor may a registration be invalidated, on the ground that filing,
registration or renewal has not been affected in the country of origin. Once the registration of
a mark is obtained in a contracting State, it is independent of its possible registration in any
other country, including the country of origin; consequently.
(2) The lapse or annulment of the registration of a mark in one contracting State does not
affect the validity of registration in other contracting States.
(3) Where a mark has been duly registered in the country of origin, it must, on request, be
accepted for filing and protected in its original form in the other contracting States.
(4) The registration may be refused in well-defined cases, such as when the mark would
infringe acquired rights of third parties, when it is devoid of distinctive character, when it is
contrary to morality or public order, or when it is of such a nature as to be liable to deceive
the public.
(5) If, in any contracting State, the use of a registered mark is compulsory, the registration
cannot be canceled until after a reasonable period, and only if the owner cannot justify his
inaction.
(6) Each contracting State must refuse registration and prohibit the use of marks which
constitute a reproduction, imitation or translation, liable to create confusion, of a mark
considered by the competent authority of that State to be well known in that State as being
already the mark of a person entitled to the benefits of the Convention and used for identical
or similar goods.
(7) Each contracting State must likewise refuse registration and prohibit the use of marks
which consist of or contain without authorization, armorial bearings, State emblems and
official signs and hallmarks of contracting states, provided they have been communicated
through the International Bureau of WIPO.
(8) The same provisions apply to armorial bearings, flags, other emblems, abbreviations and
names of certain inter-governmental organizations.
(9) Collective marks must be granted protection.
4.11 Types and Features of IPR Agreement,
Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works
The Berne Union has an Assembly and an Executive Committee. Every country
member of the Union which has adhered to at least the administrative and final provisions of
the Stockholm Act is a member of the Assembly. The members of the Executive
Committee are elected from among the members of the Union, except for Switzerland, which
is a member ex officio.
The Berne Convention, concluded in 1886, was revised at Paris in 1896 and at Berlin in
1908, completed at Berne in 1914, revised at Rome in 1928, at Brussels in 1948, at
Stockholm in 1967 and at Paris in 1971, and was amended in 1979.
The Convention rests on three basic principles and contains a series of provisions
determining the minimum protection to be granted, as well as special provisions available to
developing countries.
Basic Principles
The three basic principles are the following:
1. Works originating in one of the contracting States must be given the same protection in
each of the other contracting States as the latter grants to the works of its own nationals.
2. Such protection must not be conditional upon compliance with any formality.
3. Such protection is independent of the existence of protection in the country of origin of the
work.
If, however, a contracting State provides for a longer term than the minimum prescribed by
the Convention and the work ceases to be protected in the country of origin, protection may
be denied once protection in the country of origin ceases.
The minimum standards of protection relate to the works and rights to be protected, and the
duration of the protection:
1. As to works, the protection must include every production in the literary, scientific and
artistic domain, whatever may be the mode or form of its expression.
2. Subject to certain permitted reservations, limitations or exceptions, the following are
among the rights which must be recognized as exclusive rights of authorization:
• the right to translate,
• the right to make adaptations and arrangements of the work,
• the right to perform in public dramatic, dramatico-musical and musical works,
• the right to recite in public literary works,
• the right to communicate to the public the performance of such works,
• the right to broadcast (with the possibility of a contracting State to provide for a
mere right to equitable remuneration instead of a right of authorization),
• the right to make reproductions in any manner or form,
•the right to use the work as a basis for an audiovisual work, and the right to
reproduce, distribute, perform in public or communicate to the public that
audiovisual work.
The Convention also provides for “moral rights,” that is, the right to claim authorship
of the work and the right to object to any mutilation or deformation or other modification of,
or other derogatory action in relation to, the work which would be prejudicial to the author’s
honor or reputation.
Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)
Agreement With the establishment of the world trade Organization (WTO), the
importance and role of the intellectual property protection has been Crystallized in the Trade-
Related Intellectual Property Systems (TRIPS) Agreement. It was negotiated at the end of the
Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) treaty in 1994.
The general goals of the TRIPS Agreement are contained in the Preamble to the
Agreement, which reproduces the basic Uruguay Round negotiating objectives established in
the TRIPS area by the 1986 Punta del Este Declaration and the 1988-89 Mid-Term Review.
These objectives include the reduction of 20 PP-IPRL&P distortions and
impediments to international trade, promotion of effective and adequate protection of
intellectual property rights, and ensuring that measures and procedures to enforce intellectual
property rights do not themselves become barriers to legitimate trade.
The TRIPS Agreement encompasses, in principle, all forms of intellectual property
and aims at harmonizing and strengthening standards of protection and providing for
effective enforcement at both national and international levels. It addresses applicability of
general GATT principles as well as the provisions in international agreements on IP (Part I).
It establishes standards for availability, scope, use (Part II), enforcement (Part III), acquisition
and maintenance (Part IV) of Intellectual Property Rights. Furthermore, it addresses related
dispute prevention and settlement mechanisms (Part V). Formal provisions are addressed in
Part VI and VII of the Agreement, which cover transitional, and institutional arrangements,
respectively. The obligations under TRIPS apply equally to all member states. However
developing countries were allowed extra time to implement the applicable changes to their
national laws, in two tiers of transition according to their level of development. The transition
period for developing countries expired in 2005. For least developed countries, the transition
period has been extended to 2016, and could be extended beyond that.
The TRIPS Agreement, which came into effect on 1 January 1995, is to date the most
comprehensive multilateral agreement on intellectual property. The areas of intellectual
property that it covers are:
(i) Copyright and related rights (i.e. the rights of performers, producers of sound
recordings and broadcasting organisations);
(ii) (ii) Trade marks including service marks;
(iii) (iii) Geographical indications including appellations of origin;
(iv) (iv) Industrial designs;
(v) (v) Patents including protection of new varieties of plants;
4.12 Trademark,