Everything you need to know about national IPR Policy

The government on Friday adopted the National Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) policy to ensure new innovations and research and development are safeguarded, and to create a stable framework in the country for both, domestic and foreign investors.

While speaking to the media, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said, “there was a need to create an atmosphere of inventibility and innovation.”

The government says that the new IPR policy will lay the future roadmap for intellectual property in India. The policy recognises the abundance of creative and innovative energies that flow in India, and the need to tap into and channelise these energies towards a better and brighter future for all, a release from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry said.

With the new IPR policy, the government will strive to adopt and incorporate global best practices to the Indian scenario and create a conducive environment in the country for innovation and R&D. 

The adoption of the new IPR policy follows Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the UK in November, where he'd assured businessmen there that India will come up with a policy to protect intellectual properties soon.

What are Intellectual Property Rights?

Intellectual Property Rights assigns the right of ownership by law for any form of content (published or unpublished text, drama, music), intellect or product to the person who created it.

There are four broad types of intellectual property rights – copyright, patent, trademark and industrial design.

Types of IPRs?

Out of the four, atleast three types of IPR are often used interchangeably by people. However, all the three serve different purposes despite certain similarities that may creep in.

Copyrights: This gives the right of ownership for different kinds of content created. It gives authors entitlement for their published or unpublished text, books; to artists for their art, sculptures; musicians for their original creations; cinema and drama.

This gives the rightful owner rights over their literary or artistic creations. Copyrighted content cannot be duplicated without the permission of the author or creator. 

Trademark: A trademark gives entitlement to the creator (or company) over a name, symbol, brand, word, or a logo. This means, once trademarked, the same word or brand name or symbol cannot be used by another individual or company to brand or promote its product(s).

However, this doesn't protect the product itself. Which means, a product sold under a trademarked name or brand can be sold by others under a different name, without any legal repercussions.

That is where patents come in.

Patents: Patents protect the ownership rights of the product itself. It protects the invention or creation and credits it to the inventor. This gives the owner the right to exclude others from using, selling, duplicating or importing the creation without consent.

Industrial Design: This includes the design aspect of a product which helps in distinguishing it from other similar products. It credits ownership rights for 3D and 2D shapes, surfaces of a product, patterns, lines or colour.

Objectives of new IPR policy?

According to Press Information Bureau, the new national IPR policy is created on the basis of these seven paradigms.

-- IPR Awareness: Outreach and Promotion - To create public awareness about the economic, social and cultural benefits of IPRs among all sections of society.

-- Generation of IPRs - To stimulate the generation of IPRs.

-- Legal and Legislative Framework - To have strong and effective IPR laws, which balance the interests of rights owners with larger public interest.

-- Administration and Management - To modernize and strengthen service-oriented IPR administration.

-- Commercialization of IPRs - Get value for IPRs through commercialization.

-- Enforcement and Adjudication - To strengthen the enforcement and adjudicatory mechanisms for combating IPR infringements.

-- Human Capital Development - To strengthen and expand human resources, institutions and capacities

How will IPR change things?

-- Jaitley said that under the new policy, the government will strive to ensure by 2017 to cut down the time taken to register a trademark to one month. Currently, registering trademarks or getting a copyright or a patent in the country is a very cumbersome process.

-- He said that one most important feature of the new policy will be human development. For this, the government said “This policy shall weave in the strengths of the government, research and development organizations, educational institutions, corporate entities including MSMEs, start-ups and other stakeholders in the creation of an innovation-conducive environment, which stimulates creativity and innovation across sectors, as also facilitates a stable, transparent and service-oriented IPR administration in the country.”

-- Currently, India has a copyright law but only the publishing industry falls in its ambit. However, the new policy will cover music industry, cinema and industrial designs. This will be overlooked by the Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP) instead of the Human Resources Department (HRD).

Regulator

Actions and work under IPR policy will be monitored by DIPP, which will serve as the nodal department to coordinate, guide and oversee the implementation of new IPRs in the country, the Ministry statement said.