During the post globalisation era the forms of IPRs can be classified 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) and
- 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
For the ease of understanding the two categories under which the Intellectual property can be classified are as follows:
1. Industrial Property
Industrial property includes inventions (process, products and apparatus); Industrial designs (shapes and ornamentation); and Marks and Trade-names to distinguish goods. Recently the scope of industrial property has been extended to incorporate among others, the protection of distinctive geographical indications (in particular, appellations of origin), plant varieties, and the layout designs (topographies) of integrated circuits, as well as the repression of unfair competition, including the protection of trade secrets.
2.Copyright
Copyright, 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.
Recently an expression called ‘neighboring rights’ has been added to the concept of copyrights. The expression “neighbouring rights” is the abbreviated form of “rights neighbouring on copyright”.
The following three types of rights are covered by the concept of neighbouring rights:
- The rights of performing artists in their performance
- The rights of producers of phonograms in their phonograms
- The rights of broadcasting organization in their radio and television broadcasts.
The convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) concluded in Stockholm a July 14, 1967 (Article 2 (viii) provides that “Intellectual property” shall include rights relating to :
- Literary, artistic and scientific works,
- Performances of performing artists, phonograms and broadcasts,
- Inventions in all fields of human endeavor,
- Scientific discoveries,
- Industrial designs,
- Trademarks, service marks, and commercial names and designations,
- Protection against unfair competition and all other rights resulting from intellectual activity in the industrial scientific, literacy or artistic fields,
Intellectual property is a traditional form of property and is equilivalent to an asset. Just like real and personal property the intellectual property can also be brought, sold, licensed, exchanged or gratuitously given away. Intellectual property owner has also the right to prevent the unauthorized use or sale of the property. The most striking difference between intellectual property and other form of property is that it is intangible that is it cannot be defined or identified by its own physical parameters so intellectual property must be expressed in some discernible way for enabling it to be protected. Unlike a physical object an intellectual property like an idea for invention, a piece of music or a trademark cannot be protected against other person’s use of them by simply possessing the object. Hence the necessity of enacting intellectual property laws distinct from conventional laws protecting personal property.
The practice of defining intellectual property started in the Italian City States. it has been reported that the first patent was granted to Filippo Brunelleschi in the Republic of Florence in 1421. Brunelleschi was given a three year monopoly for his invention concerning special hoisting gear used on barges. An ordinance relating to patents was first enacted in a Venetian law of 1474.From the Italian City States the practice spread to other western European countries. In England during the reign of Elizabeth I (1533-1603), her minister, Lord Burghley (1520-98), granted a series of patents with a view to encouraging foreign inventors to import their inventions and work them in England. It was also intended to stimulate inventions by domestic producers. In India the basic elements of intellectual property rights were first introduced by enacting the Act on Protection of Inventions in 1856. This Act, which was based on the British Patent Law of 1852, was the origin of patent legislation in India. A chronological perspective of the development of Indian IPR
