Benefits of securing Intellectual Property Rights

Presented by Arnav Mehrotra, B.V.Sc. & A.H.

Introduction and overviewTypes of Intellectual Properties

• Trademarks• Patents• Copyrights• Industrial designs• Trade secrets

Trademarks

Trademarks

• Registering a trademark protects a company's name or logo, which is often a company's most valuable asset;

• Registering a trademark decreases the likelihood of another party claiming that your trademark infringes upon their trademark;

• Registering a trademark provides official notice to others that a trademark is already taken; consequently, a company that later adopts a confusingly similar trademark can not claim ignorance of the mark;

• Registering a trademark deters others from using your trademark

Trademark contd.

• By registering a trademark the trademark owner obtains the right to put a symbol

alerting others to your registration and preventing the defense of innocent infringement;

• Registering a trademark provides the trademark owner with greater remedies

• Registering a trademark increases the likelihood of the successful filing of a dispute resolution

Patents

Patents • The economic benefits of the patent system are derived from its roles in promoting innovation, and

encouraging investment, economic growth, knowledge sharing and the efficient use of resources

• Patents promote innovation through the grant of limited monopolies, as a reward to inventors for the time, effort and ingenuity invested in creating new products and processes

• The potential for financial returns adds an extra incentive for the innovators.

• Patents stimulate the growth of national industry because local companies that hold patents can attract overseas investment

• Innovation benefits the community by creating new and improved goods and services that meet social needs. For example, innovations in veterinary research may produce new diagnostic tests or treatments, which improve herd health.

Patents contd.• Possessing a patent may help a company to grow by capitalising on the market potential of its inventions.

Small companies may use patents to attract financial backing

• By providing a system for trading knowledge internationally through licence agreements. The grant of licences to international companies to exploit locally developed inventions provides returns to inventors and access to foreign markets.

• Patents promote knowledge sharing by requiring the details of the patented invention to be placed in the public domain in return for the exclusive right to exploit the invention. In the absence of this exchange, inventors might protect the details of new inventions through secrecy

• By encouraging knowledge sharing, patents reduce the duplication of research effort and encourage researchers to build on existing inventions

Copyrights

Copyrights• Applies to literary and artistic works.

• Protecting such materials from abuse, misuse and/or piracy may be critical to prevent erosion of a competitive advantage.

• Denoted by the symbol

• Copyright enables authors or artists to support themselves from their works.

• It gives entrepreneurs the opportunity to generate profits to reinvest in tomorrow’s creations and their

distribution.

Copyrights contd.• Increased investment causes increased flow of money into that field, leading to production of more work at an

affordable price, giving consumers more options.

• Copyright allows the creator or owner of rights to control the use of their copyrighted work in the marketplace by granting them economic and moral rights over the work.

• Economic rights accord control over copying or reproduction and other uses, such as rental of computer programs and films; distribution of copies to the public etc.

• Moral rights preserve the link between the author and the work, which includes the right to be named as the author, and the right to object to any distortion, mutilation or other modification that may affect the honor or reputation of the author

Industrial designs

Industrial Designs• An industrial design constitutes the ornamental or aesthetic aspect of an article.

• An industrial design may consist of three dimensional features, such as the shape of an article, or two dimensional features, such as patterns, lines or color.

• Industrial designs are what makes a product attractive and appealing; hence, they add to the commercial value of a product and increase its marketability.

• When an industrial design is protected, this helps to ensure a fair return on investment.

• Protecting industrial designs helps economic development, by encouraging creativity in the industrial and manufacturing sectors and contributes to the expansion of commercial activities and the export of national products.

Trade Secrets

Trade Secrets• Trade secrets may concern inventions or manufacturing processes that do not meet the patentability criteria

and therefore can only be protected as trade secrets. Ex. Consumer lists, survey results.

• Secured through Non Disclosure Agreements.

• Trade secret protection has the advantage of not being limited in time (patents last in general for up to 20 years). It may therefore continue indefinitely as long as the secret is not revealed to the public.

• Trade secrets involve no registration costs.

Trade Secrets Contd.• Trade secret protection does not require compliance with formalities such as disclosure of the

information to a Government authority.

• Employees in the breach of NDA penalized financially.

References• www.wipo.int (World Intellectual Property Organization)• www.ipaustralia.gov.au• www.patentsoffice.ie• www.registeringatrademark.com• www.cipo.ic.gc.ca• www.tmweb.com/copyright.asp