According to the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), intellectual belongings refers to creations of thoughts: innovations; literary and creative works; and symbols, names and pictures used in commerce. It can be bifurcated into two categories :
1. Industrial assets which incorporates patents for innovations, commercial designs, logos, and geographical indications.
2. Copyrights which covers literary works (e.g. novels, poems and many others.), films, music and/or every other creative work.
As an inventor, proprietor or writer of such intellectual assets you have got rights, similar to in case of every other physical property. It prevents every person or entity to apply it without your permission in conjunction with giving due credit or even financial compensation.
To legally put in force such rights, you need to register your invention with the office of controller General of Patents, Designs & Trade Marks under Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Government of India.
File in your application as quickly as possible, as first-to-report rule is of great importance for registration of intellectual property. If two or more applications are identical or comparable only the the foremost application will be given importance for registration.
Patent implies a brand new product or procedure capable of industrial application. The product or procedure need to be a new invention that has not been used earlier than within the public domain. Time period for registered patents in India is 20 years.
Application for registration has to be filed inside the patents office of applicable territorial jurisdiction via the inventor either by self or through assigned legal representative. An important thing to understand is that those rights are territorial in nature and do no extend beyond the jurisdiction for which it is granted. If you want to reserve the IPR in different international boundries, then either you can file the patent application separately in countries of your preference or you can file Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) application simultaneously with application in Form-1.
In addition to Form 1 you need to fill Form 2 in which you need to mention the specification of your invention in detail and Form 3 and Form 5 in which you need to mention the details of any foreign filings for the same and a bonafide affirming that the product/process is your invention respectively.
Industrial Design
In accordance to WIPO, an industrial design refers to the ornamental or aesthetic aspects of an article. A design may comprise of 3-D features, such as the shape or surface of an article, or 2-D features such as patterns, lines or color. Industrial designs are applied to wide variety of industrial products containing distinctive features and handicraft items.
There is a separate Design Wing in the patent office under Government of India which oversees the registration process. The process is now online.You need to create an account,fill in the application, digitally sign the form (Form 5 and 44 ) and make the payment.
After the thorough examination, the copyright is granted, and the details of the same are entered into Register of Designs , maintained in the Patent Office. It contains parameters such as Name and address of the Proprieter , Design number, class number , date of filing, etc.
Any person can inspect the register after payment of prescribed fees.
Trademarks
A Trademark mark is a recognizable sign, design, or expression which identifies products or services belongs to or provided by certain individual or some legal entity.
A trademark identifies the brand owner of a particular product or service. Trademarks can also be licensed to others in order to earn revenue or brand proliferation. The unauthorized usage of trademarks by producing and trading counterfeit consumer goods is known as brand piracy. Regulation of Trademarks in India is governed under Trademarks Act, 1999. This Act is in compliance with World Trade Organization recommendations and Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement.
You can obtain Trademark from Registrar of Trademark under the Office of Controller General of Patents, Designs & Trade Marks ,Government of India.The validity of Trademark is 10 years and you can again renew that for another 10 years.The Process of registration is now online.
To register follow the link ,create an account,fill in the application ,digitally sign the Form TM-1 and make the payment.
Like registration of Industrial Design, Trademark registration is also limited to certain territorial boundries. The Application is inspected for the uniqueness of the relevant mark ,whether is it enough to distinguish and differentiate an applicant’s good or service and whether it is prohibited for registration under any other law or is identical or similar to any existing marks. On successful grant ,the trademark is included in the Register of Trademark.
In case somebody wants to contest the grant of trademark, same should be intimated to the Office within 4 months from the date of publication in the official gazette.
Some important links:
(1)For e-Filling Patent,Design,GI etc.
(2)For Form and Fees.
