Intellectual Property Rights

Intellectual property Right (IPR) is a term used for various legal entitlements which attach to certain types of information, ideas, or other intangibles in their expressed form. Intellectual property laws vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, such that the acquisition, registration or enforcement of IP rights must be pursued or obtained separately in each territory of interest.

Intellectual property rights (IPR) can be defined as the rights given to people over the creation of their minds. They usually give the creator an exclusive right over the use of his/her creations for a certain period of time.

What is Intellectual Property Rights?

Intellectual property rights (IPR) can be defined as the rights given to people over the creation of their minds. They usually give the creator an exclusive right over the use of his/her creations for a certain period of time. Intellectual property (IP) refers to creations of the mind: inventions, literary and artistic works, and symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce.

 

Categories of Intellectual Property

One can broadly classify the various forms of IPRs into two categories:

  • IPRs that stimulate inventive and creative activities (patents, utility models, industrial designs, copyright, plant breeders’ rights and layout designs for integrated circuits).
  • IPRs that offer information to consumers (trademarks and geographical indications).

IPRs in both categories seek to address certain failures of private markets to provide for an efficient allocation of resources

IP is divided into two categories for ease of understanding:

  1. Industrial Property
  2. Copyright

Industrial property, which includes inventions (patents), trademarks, industrial designs, and geographic indications of source; and

Copyright, which includes literary and artistic works such as novels, poems and plays, films, musical works, artistic works such as drawings, paintings, photographs and sculptures, and architectural designs. Rights related to copyright include those of performing artists in their performances, producers of phonograms in their recordings, and those of broadcasters in their radio and television programs.

Intellectual property shall include the right relating to:

  1. Literary, artistic and scientific works
  2. Performance of performing artists
  3. Inventions in all fields of human endeavour
  4. Scientific discoveries
  5. Industrial designs
  6. Trademarks, service marks
  7. Protection against unfair competition

Rights protected under Intellectual Property

The different types of Intellectual Property Rights are:

  1. Patents
  2. Copyrights
  3. Trademarks
  4. Industrial designs
  5. Protection of Integrated Circuits layout design
  6. Geographical indications of goods
  7. Biological diversity
  8. Plant varieties and farmers rights
  9. Undisclosed information

Intellectual Property

  1. Inventions
  2. Trademarks
  3. Industrial design
  4. Geographical indications

Copyright

  1. Writings
  2. Paintings
  3. Musical works
  4. Dramatics works
  5. Audiovisual works
  6. Sound recordings
  7. Photographic works
  8. Broadcast
  9. Sculpture
  10. Drawings
  11. Architectural works etc.