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Introduction

Intellectual property is a form of knowledge which societies have decided can be assigned
specific property rights. They have some resemblance to ownership rights over physical property
or land. But knowledge is much more than intellectual property. Knowledge is embodied in
people, in institutions and in new technologies in ways that have long been seen as a major
engine of economic growth. Alfred Marshall, the father of modern economics, thought so in
the 19th Century. With recent scientific and technical advances, particularly in biotechnology and
information and communications technologies (ICTs), knowledge has become to an even greater
degree than before the principal source of competitive advantage for both companies and
countries. Trade in high technology goods and services which are knowledge-intensive, and
where IP protection is most common, tends to be among the fastest-growing in international
trade.
In developed countries, there is good evidence that intellectual property is, and has been,
important for the promotion of invention in some industrial sectors, although the evidence as to
exactly how important it is in different sectors is mixed. For example, evidence from the 1980s
indicates that the pharmaceutical, chemical and petroleum industries were predominant in
recognizing that the patent system was essential to innovation. Today, one would need to add
biotechnology and some components of information technology. Copyright has also proven
essential for the music, film and publishing industries.
For developing countries, like the developed countries before them, the development of
indigenous technological capacity has proved to be a key determinant of economic growth and
poverty reduction. This capacity determines the extent to which these countries can assimilate
and apply foreign technology. Many studies have concluded the most distinctive single factor
determining the success of technology transfer is the early emergence of an indigenous
technological capacity.
Global intellectual property theft and commerce in counterfeit and pirated goods are growing at
an alarming pace. Counterfeiting is no longer limited to the knockoffs of high-end designer
handbags sold on city street corners but, instead, has evolved into a sophisticated black market
industry involving the manufacture and sale of counterfeit versions of an unimaginable number
of products. Reports of counterfeit pharmaceuticals, infant formula, automobile parts, batteries,
and electronic products occur all too frequently and make chillingly clear the potential harm that
could be inflicted on consumers, not to mention the counterfeited brand. At bottom,
counterfeiters are opportunists motivated by greed and will move whatever products they can
through their illicit chains of distribution. Indeed, whether it is knockoff designer handbags or
fake pharmaceuticals, it does not matter to the counterfeiters as long as there is a market for the
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product, they will manufacture and sell it. Accordingly, every business is at risk. It is estimated
that intellectual property theft costs domestic companies between $200 billion and $250 billion a
year in lost revenues and has resulted in the loss of 750,000 jobs in the United States. The harm
caused by counterfeiting and piracy cannot be overstated. Every sale made by a counterfeiter is a
sale that a legitimate business will never make. Because the counterfeiter is unlikely to have
access to the same quality raw goods as the legitimate manufacturer and has no incentive to
institute quality control practices or procedures, the resulting counterfeit product is most
assuredly inferior in quality and, in many instances, can be downright dangerous compared to the
legitimate product. As a result, an introduction into the market of a single counterfeit product has
the potential to undermine and irrevocably damage years of building a business goodwill and
reputation.

What is
(IPR)?

Intellectual

Property

Rights

Intellectual Property Rights are the rights given to persons over the creations of their Minds.
They usually give the creator an exclusive right over the use of his/her creation for certain period
of time to inventions, literary and artistic works, and symbols, names, images, and Designs used
in commerce Anything made by human intervention requires intellectual efforts and all human
made Things are a result of intellectual creations. However individual persons do not own most
of these creations or organizations but human race as a whole is the collective owner of these
Creations. Some specific creations made by individuals / organizations are owned by them
Subject to the conditions laid down by certain laws for recognizing and rewarding the intellectual
Activity of the creator. Intellectual property refers to such creations. These include Inventions,
Symbols, names, images; literary and artistic work.

Why worry about IP?


IP provides a proprietary right in intangible products of the human mind, which are also
known as knowledge goods or creations.
IP is ownership of property that is distinct from real estate or personal property as
These are products of human intellect or mind. Though ownership is similar, the kind
of Goods is different: tangible and intangible goods Intellectual Property Rights are the
legal rights which result from intellectual activity in the Industrial, scientific, literary and
artistic fields. These are time limited right.
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Types of Intellectual Property Rights


An intellectual property can be either artistic or commercial. The artistic works come under the
category of copyright laws, while the commercial ones (also known as industrial properties), and
include patents, trademarks, industrial design rights, and trade secrets. Copyright laws deal with
the intellectual property of creative works like books, music, software and painting. Industrial
properties cover those created and used for industrial or commercial purposes. As stated earlier,
intellectual property is categorized into various types as per the nature of work. The most
common types are copyrights, trademarks, patents, industrial design rights and trade secrets. So,
these rights safeguard the interests of the owners of IP. If you are an author, who has written a
new book, you can apply for a copyright for your work. Likewise, patents can be obtained for
inventions. Once you establish your IP right, you can protect your work legally
Broadly, intellectual property is divided into two categories: industrial property and copyright.
Industrial property includes patents, trademarks, industrial designs and geographic indications
while copyright include creative works like novels, poems, plays, films, musical works,
computer software and artistic works.
1. Patents,
2. Plant Variety Protection (PVP)
3. Geographical Indications
4. Copy Rights
5. Trade Marks
6. Trade Secrets
7. Industrial Designs

1. PATENT:
A Patent is an exclusive monopoly granted by the Government to an inventor over his Invention
for limited period of time. Patents protect inventions and improvements to existing Inventions.
An inventor or any other person/company assigned by the inventor can obtain the patent Over his
invention. A patent is obtained by the inventor or his assignee by filing an application. With the
patent office in the stipulated forms as required by the Patent act of that country. A patent is
granted only on that invention, which is new (Novelty), non-obvious and has Industrial
applicability (Utility).
A patent can expire in the following ways:
The patent has lived its full term i.e. the term specified by the patent act of the country. Generally
it is 20 years from the date of filing. The patentee has failed to pay the renewal fee. A patent once
granted by the Government has To be maintained by paying annual renewal fee..The validity of
the patent has been successfully challenged by an opponent by filing an Opposition either with
the patent office or with the courts.
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2. Plant Variety Protection:


The plant variety protection was started in the year 1952 and the PVP Act of 1970. Plant variety
rights also known as Plant breeders rights are Intellectual Property Rights granted to the breeder
of a new variety of plant (or to another person or entity that can claim title in the new plant
variety by, for example, agreement with the breeder or inheritance from a deceased breeder.
These laws typically grant the plant breeder control of the propagating material(Including seed,
cuttings, divisions, tissue culture) and harvested material (cut flowers, Fruit, foliage) of a new
variety for a number of years. With these rights, the breeder can choose to become the exclusive
marketer of the Variety, or to license the variety to others. Breeders can bring suit to enforce their
rights and can recover damages for infringement. Plant breeders rights contain exemptions
Infringement that are not recognized under patent law. The PVP gives breeders up to 25 years of
exclusive control over new, distinct, uniform, and stable sexually reproduced or tuber propagated
plant varieties.

3. Trade Mark:
Trademark means any mark used represent or identify a product or its maker. In market economy
trademarks are most important because it is the biggest assets of company that really sells the
products. A Trademark can be generally defined as a sign or mark that individualizes and
distinguishes the goods of a given enterprise from the goods of other enterprises.
Definition of trademark: A distinctive name, symbol, motto, or design that legally identifies
accompany or its products and services, and sometimes prevents others from using identical or
similar marks.

4. Geographical Indications:
Geographical indication is an indication that identifies a good as originating in a territory where
a given quality, reputation or other characteristic of the good is essentially attributable to its
geographical origin. The Geographical indications include the land related. It does not contain
any time limit.s

5. Copyrights:
Copyright protects original literary and artistic expression that is fixed in a tangible form. It
exists automatically when an original work entitled to copyright protection is created. Under
basic copyright law, a work is created when it is fixed in a tangible medium of expression for
the first time.
Although displaying a copyright notice on goods is no longer required under U.S. law, providing
proper notice on the packaging of the goods themselves is beneficial. It puts the public on notice
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that the work is protected by a copyright, identifies the copyright owner, and shows the year of
first publication. Importantly, a defendant in a copyright infringement suit shown to have access
to works published with the proper notice of copyright may be prevented from claiming the
status of an innocent infringer in an attempt to mitigate actual or statutory damages. Copyright
owners can provide notice of their rights by using the symbol, or word Copyright, accompanied
by the year of first publication and the name of the owner.
The term of copyright protection varies depending on when the work was created. For works
created after January 1, 1978, for example, the term is the authors lifetime plus 70 years. If the
work is anonymous or made for hire, the term is the earlier of 95 years from publication or 120
years from creation.

6. Trade Secrets:
Trade secrets are the designs, practices, formulas, instruments, processes, recipes, patterns, or
ideas which are used by a company to gain an economic advantage over its competitors. The
owner of a trade secret does not possess any right over anyone who gains access to that secret
independently, but he can prevent the use of the trade secret by anyone who has learned it
through the owner. For example, an employer can protect trade secrets through contracts with his
employees. Trade secrets differ from other types of intellectual property rights, because it is the
responsibility of the owner to keep the secret and it is not protected through government policies.
Once the trade secret is leaked, it can be used by any person.

7. Industrial Design Rights:


These rights protect the visual design of objects that are not purely utilitarian, but have an
aesthetic or ornamental value. It may refer to the creation of a shape, color, pattern or a
combination of all these things. It can be an industrial commodity or a handicraft. The design can
be either two-dimensional (based on pattern, colors and lines) or three-dimensional (as per shape
and surface). An industrial design right is conferred after considering factors like novelty,
originality and visual appeal. The person who has an industrial design right has the exclusive
right to make or sell any objects in which the design is applicable. The right is conferred for a
period of 10 to 25 years

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Intellectual Property in Real Life


Apple and Intelactual Property:
In recent news, Apple, Inc. has won a decisive lawsuit against fellow electronics and software
developer Samsung. The lawsuit, which found Samsung guilty of infringing on a number of
Apples patents, awarded over $1 billion to Apple, and sent a formidably clear message to all
others in the field. It has effectively dictated that any imitation of Apples products will not be
tolerated, and that consumers should receive all their finger scrolling and pinch-to-enlarge
technology from a single company.
All of this, of course, has been done in the name of property rights. Specifically, it has been done
in the name of protecting Apples intellectual property rights, a concept that today goes almost
universally unquestioned. This is unfortunate, however, as the idea of intellectual property rests
on less-than-sturdy philosophical foundations, and is not at all clear to be entirely justified.
As intellectual property lawyer Stephan Kinsella has explained, property rights arise as a means
for resolving conflict over scarce resources. (If resources were not scarce but rather infinitely
abundant, then everyone would have free access to all goods all of the time, and concepts such as
property and ownership would lose their meaning to us.) A proper implementation of property
rights in any dispute functions by identifying the owner of the good in question, who entertains
the full authority in decision-making over that good. An owner of a good can be identified by his
relation to the first possessor of that good, and whether the formers acquisition of it from the
latter was legitimate or illegitimate. The entire notion of property rights, then, is derived from the
fact of scarcity in nature.

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Intellectual Property Rights and Book Publishing:


A publisher in a West African country once said that his greatest competitors were not other
publishers but those who produced and sold infringing copies (also referred to as counterfeit or
pirated goods) of his publications on street corners. Blatant intellectual property infringements
are more of a problem in some countries than in others. Yet it is the most persistent drain on
publishing resources and energies when the public is said to be complicit in these activities
through insufficient knowledge about intellectual property and lack of awareness of the
ramifications of their actions. Although legal action against copyright infringers, including those
who plagiarize and provide counterfeit copies to the public, may be effective in the short-term
when the attendant publicity makes an impression on the public conscience, the only long-term
solution is a better-informed and more aware public. ((Managing Intellectual Property In the
Book Publishing Industry, Monica Seeber and Richard Balkwill, pg-9)
Academia is particularly receptive to awareness campaigns if senior officials and policy-makers
buy into the principle of copyright compliance. In one developing country the department of
education issued copyright guidelines to schools in which it stated unequivocally that school
principals were ultimately responsible for compliance in their institutions and that copyright
infringement was not only a potential embarrassment to the department but was both morally
condemnable and educationally unacceptable. The guidelines went on to say that the department
was aware how teachers often complained that restrictions on photocopying were frustrating and
prevented the dissemination of materials and information to pupils, and that it wished to
emphasize that not only did school principals bear the responsibility for instilling in their pupils
the moral obligation to respect other peoples property they were also responsible for
encouraging creativity and original thought. To photocopy in excess of what the law allowed and
without a license amounted to misappropriation of intellectual property. To plagiarize someone
elses work by passing it off as their own was not only dishonest but also a pedagogically
unsound practice inhibiting intellectual growth and development. Publishers acting alone will
find it almost impossible to crack the public indifference to the losses suffered by the supply of
counterfeit copies in the marketplace or the continued erosion of their profits from sales by
unauthorized reproductions in educational institutions. For this reason publishers associations
position themselves to mount effective campaigns. For example, RROs have had success in
creating compliance cultures, not only through awareness campaigns but also by providing a
safety valve whereby copies may be made legally against payment of a small fee and, very
importantly, by streamlining the process through which the license is granted. It has often been
said that enforcement and licensing complement each other and that a publishing industry has a
far greater chance of success if it can rely on the support of a legal framework with adequate
measures for countering violation of intellectual property provisions, combined with a
functioning system of collective administration. (Growth of Intellectual Property, William
Fisher III, pg-12).
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Publishers find it ironic that the justification for the making of illegal copies or the purchasing of
counterfeit books is that the originals are too expensive since the erosion of the market leads to
smaller print runs, smaller print runs lead to higher unit costs and higher unit costs lead to
increased retail selling prices. The goal of awareness campaigns is public attentiveness to such
issues. Publishers should aim to enlist the support of other rights owners authors, artists and
photographers to lend weight to their campaigns, and all the members of an industry cluster are
potential allies since, as has already been shown, each link in the publishing value chain depends
for its health on all the others, and all are weakened by an uninformed and uncaring public. In a
developing country the national market is always the worst hit by large-scale copyright
infringement because it is the smallest, the most fragile and the most susceptible to threats.
Foreign publishers will either ride out the damage or withdraw their publications from a market
that is not crucial to them in any case, but local publishers are dependent for their livelihoods on
the domestic market.

Reference:

http://www.apple.com/legal/contact/#copyright-infringement

http://www.apple.com/legal/intellectual-property/piracy.html

http://www.apple.com/legal/contact/#counterfeit

http://www.dukechronicle.com/articles/2012/09/05/apple-and-intellectualproperty

http://www.microsoft.com/enus/legal/intellectualproperty/IPLicensing/default.aspx

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/legal/intellectualproperty/default.aspx

http://www.wipo.int/about-ip/en/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property

www.magazineworld.org

www.accu.or.jp/appreb/10copyr/pdf_ws0601/c2_3.pdf

www.wipo.int/freepublications/en/copyright/868/wipo_pub_868.pdf

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