Intellectual Property Rights

IP or Intellectual property refers to a number of distinct types of creations of mind with legal protection. These are intangible assets with wide spectrum ranging from musical, literary and artistic work, discovery, phrases, symbols or words. Common IP is copyright, patent, trade mark, industrial design and trade secrets. As Deepak Ravindran of Innoz says, “IP always are valuable in any business especially on technology ventures, since it can differentiate us from a competitor. If IP is patented, it brings more value to the board”.

Benefits:

One may enforce his rights. If you do not know about a certain area of intellectual property then you might find it difficult to distinguish if your rights have been violated. With IP law, you can recognise the areas, and evoke any necessary action needed to ensure that you do not lose out. The damages are mostly in form of financial gains.

According to Shishir Sharan of reqSmart, “Intellectual property covers industrial property, which includes inventions, trademarks, industrial design, and geographical indications of source; and copyright, which includes literary and artistic works. IPR Protection is very important for a small business – it makes them investor friendly, viable option for mergers and acquisitions, and also helps them not being on the losing side when their brand suddenly becomes popular. Unfortunately, there are companies and agents out there, just trying to identify loopholes in your IPR protection procedures to make use of your IP for their benefit, or in cases, even resell them to other companies who want to make a quick easy buck. IPR is not just important for software product companies, where you don’t want a runaway employee who has your source code, who can sell it to your competitor, but its important for Internet companies (Websites addresses, Trademarks, URLs and more), Manufacturing businesses (Process, Technology) and SMEs in other areas.

Two very important resources for any small-business owner are time and money. And thinking IPR Protection is expensive, they more often than not think that IPR protection is for big companies, or for when they become big. For Indian SMEs who trade internationally via the web channel or other channels, they also need to understand IPR laws in countries they do business in. Now at times, this may be expensive, but if you do a thorough web-research, an SME can find low cost ways to protect their IPR.

Also, SMEs should not sit on unused I.P. They should use it to create new sources of revenue or do licensing based partnerships.

How to do it?

 IP law is catching up fast in the city. Here is what you should know to protect your property.

1. Register anything and everything that it makes sense to register.
2. Do not talk about your property or trade secrets with anyone, including your employees. Make a confidentiality and trade secret, non-disclosure agreement against what is revealed.
3. Take an instant step at the first sign of an IP or trade secret violation.
4. I addition to the entire above, have a good relationship with the governments of the countries in which you operate.

Types

The most common areas of IPR in India are:

 Patent: Which is a set of exclusive rights given by a state (national government) to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange of the public disclosure of an invention.

Trademark: A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or services from those of other entities.

A trademark may be designated by the following symbols:

• ™ (for an unregisterd trade mark, that is, a mark used to promote or brand goods)
• ℠ (for an unregistered service that is, a mark used to promote or brand services)
• ® (for a registered trademark)

A trademark is typically a name, word, phrase, logo, symbol, design, image, or a combination of these elements.

Copyright: A document granting exclusive right to publish and sell literary or musical or artistic work. The right of an author or his assignee, under statute, to print and publish his literary or artistic work, exclusively of all other persons. This right may be had in maps, charts, engravings, plays, and musical compositions, as well as in books.

Industrial design is a combination of applied art and applied science whereby the aesthetics, ergonomics and usability of products may be improved for marketability and production. The role of an industrial designer is to create and execute design solutions towards problems of form, usability, physical ergonomics marketing, brand development and sales.

Patent filing may be expensive process in some places, but Trademarks, Copyrights, protection of IP of your product, Industrial Design, are usually not an expensive deal.

Confidential information and trade secrets can also be protected by imposing restrictions on the physical use of that information and also imposing contractual obligations upon the persons dealing with that information – for example, the formula for making Coca Cola has been kept secret in this manner.

Sidhart Rao, CEO and Co-Founder of Web Chutney explains the importance of IP in advertising, "My sense is that IP laws help bring small and large businesses at par by ensuring that a brilliant idea, concept or technology cannot by copied, even if it is a brainchild of a small organization. From registering your trademark as your domain name to obtaining a copyright for your website design, IP laws’ contribution in maintaining continuity of revenue streams of small businesses is immense.

However, with content sharing websites, including YouTube, Slideshare and Scribd, freely facilitating access to and circulation of content available online, the possibility that content will be modified, revised, rehashed or eventually reproduced increases substantially. This is often beyond the ambit of IP laws, which is why entering into written license agreements to protect creative outputs and consolidate one’s position on a solid ground is important. A recent incident in which students of a popular Delhi-based educational institute received criticism for making a video based on an ad concept copied from a UK-based health organization is a case in point here. 

Thanks to the time and energy involved in tracking people owning copyrights and working out agreements with them, advertisers often use material freely available in the public domain, at times sparking conflicts about ownership. What merits attention is that while a lot of items including artwork, photos, backgrounds, wallpapers, banners, logos and other material are freely available online, they could be copyrighted. Validating the sources and checking authenticity of such material before use becomes crucial in this case. 

IP laws today have turned into a tricky area, particularly for advertisements which are often charged with lawsuits for infringement. Clearly, while laws for intellectual property protection exist in India, what is critical and yet missing is their implementation. 

Staying vigilant and obtaining a thorough understanding of legal frameworks is necessary for digital advertisers, typically when complexities and loopholes in IP laws and proliferation of search engines facilitate copying, imitation and infringement.

The way forward is to simplify the law and bring more clarity about its jurisdiction, procedures and impact. In my opinion, as far as IP laws for advertisers are concerned, it is better to adopt protective measures and stay on guard rather than getting entangled in a vicious circle of law enforcement agencies and courts.