The legal and business literature such as books, magazines, blogs, and reports is full of detailed writings on intellectual property, intellectual property rights, and the laws related to that, written by experts in that domain. Trying to write about this vast subject, with its finer nuances, in this forum, intended for entrepreneurs and budding entrepreneurs, would be unthinkable.
Mainly, then, I can only offer a glimpse of that world, which might be relevant to them. On a practical level, one can deal with it in two sections, the first one dealing with what constitutes IP and the next one dealing with how IP can be protected.
Intellectual property is property that can be sold, licensed, damaged or transferred. It would be worthwhile at this point to take a quick look at what IP types encompass and the approximate costs of IP in India.
Patents are exclusive rights granted to inventors by the government, which prevents others from using their inventions in different ways, for a certain period of time (usually 20 years). Patent fees, excluding attorney fees, are compulsory in the amount of Rs 3,500 and up, while it takes an average of 5 years to be granted. Patents must be renewed annually or full fees may be paid according to the schedule provided.
Copyright is the protection provided to authors of original works of authorship in which the form of expression of content is protected, rather than the content itself. These include works of literature, music, art such as photos, drawings, songs, melodies, performing arts, books, etc. Copyright grant is immediate and lasts for the life of the creator plus another 70 years, and costs Rs 500 and up for different categories.
Geographical Indications (GI) of goods are those that belong to a particular country or to a place located in it and is a guarantee of that distinctive quality that comes from that place of origin of the goods. E.g. Sarees from Kanchipuram. Fees are paid in accordance with the prescribed fee structure.
Apart from the previous category of products/services, it is important for new companies to know and understand the meaning of the intangible assets of their company, since 80% of the value of the business resides in these.
Most people are completely unaware of the presence and value of these assets that comprise the know-how, the experience, the knowledge that highly qualified employees have, the work and life experience, the de novo ideas created specifically for the business by a group of experts to give the company an advantage over its competitors, goodwill and reputation, technical drawings, recipes, software programs developed by employees, formulas, written trade secrets, and contracts.
These assets are not eligible to apply for patents and copyrights, and have no value outside the company, but greatly increase the value of the company.
Having familiarized ourselves with the various facets of intellectual property, we move on to the next section on how you can best protect it.