Concerns in Intellectual property Rights

Introduction

Intellectual property rights encompass legal protection for intellectual creations granted to individuals in a variety of domains, including inventions, literary works, artistic works, and distinctive names, symbols, and images used in commerce. The creators are provided with exclusive rights and obtain benefits from the usage of those creations for a designated period. The recognition and protection of IPR were pivotal developments in international law, and the Paris Convention of Industrial Property (1883 and the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (1886, play a crucial role in framing legal protection for intellectual creations. The rapid technological advancement and the emerging challenges in relation to 3D printing, artificial intelligence, and spatial computing show the necessity of establishing regulations and effective safeguards.

Main IP Laws

1. Patents (Amendment) Act, 2005 (2005)
2. The Trade Marks Act, 1999 (1999)
3. Copyright (Amendment) Act, 1994 (1994)
4. The Designs Act, 2000 (2000)? Copyright (Amendment) Act, 1999 (1999)
5. The Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999 (1999)
6. Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers' Rights Act, 2001 (2001)
7. The Semiconductor Integrated Circuits Layout-Design Act, 2000 (2000)

Significance

• To foster economic growth and development by encouraging innovation, enhancing competitiveness, and facilitating transfer of technology.
• This legal protection is crucial for attracting foreign investment, cornerstone for initiatives like Make in India aiming to establish India as a global centre for design, manufacturing, and innovation.
• By shielding their intellectual property, companies can monetize their patents or trademarks, through licensing fees, generating an additional stream of revenue.
• By safeguarding their brand identity, not only upholds company’s reputation, but also foster trust with their customers.
• It offers business legal protection empowering them to pursue legal remedies against individuals or entities that violate their intellectual property rights.

Contemporary concerns

In India-UK trade FTA talks, IPR was one of the contentious issues in relation to regulatory data protection and patent term extension. The Patent term extension, which is a ‘ever-greening tactics’ employed by companies to prevent the entry of generic drug manufactures. Thus, India, show its firm resistance on FTA negotiations.

The enforcement of IP in Digital age poses considerable risk in proportionally advancing technology such as Artificial Intelligence, chatGPT, that prima faces causes effortless reproduction and widespread reproduction of digital content via internet making tedious for creators or owner to monitor and regulate the use of IP effectively. Thus, challenging the traditional perspective on creativity, authorship, ownership and pushing the limits of copyright laws.

Data exclusivity is legal protection in regard to the data submitted by pharmaceutical or agrochemical ‘innovator company’ to regulatory authorities for the consent of a new product, such as a drug or pesticide, which prevents third parties, typically ‘generic drug manufacturers’, from relying on the original innovator's data to obtain regulatory approval for similar products for a significant period.

The proposal to increase the exclusitivity duration from 4 to 10 year was discussed by Drug Technical Advisory Board (DTAB) the government on technical matters, However, In order to arrive at Conclusive point the idea must balances conflicting desires of innovators and generic companies but also to protect the consumers.

Compulsory licensing It is legal mechanism that allows a third party to use, produce, or sell a patented invention or copyrighted work without the consent of the IPR holder after paying predetermine fee for license. It can be issued on certain conditions mention under Indian patent act, 1970:

• that the reasonable requirements of the public with respect to the patented invention have not been satisfied, or
• that the patented invention is not available to the public at a reasonably affordable price, or
• that the patented invention is not worked in the territory of India.

In Delhi High Court Judgment in PhonePe v. Ezy services ors. Refused to grant interim injunction order against bharatPe as held that said mark is not violating the trademark held by ‘PhonePe’, the word ‘Pe’, ‘pay’ or ‘Devanagri text’. The plaintiff cannot claim exclusitivity solely over suffix ‘pe’as no infringement can be claim on the basis of the part of registered trademark therefore the application was dismissed.

Conclusion

Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) plays a key role in fostering innovation, protecting creations, and stimulating economic growth. However, recent challenges, such as digital piracy, globalization complexities, technological advancements, and evolving ethical considerations lay down necessity of adaptive and robust legal framework and clarification in respect of complexities for seamless execution and counter the challenges. Thus, policymakers, businesses and legal practioners must work collectively in address these challenges.Top of Form