Intellectual Property Rights in the Emerging Business Environment

Intellectual property rights are based upon the primary issues of capturing the unique ideas of an individual or a group. When the idea is captured into a form of an intellectual asset, it gains great value in terms of the company turnover as well as it gives the company a competitive edge. Intellectual properties are primarily in the form of copyrights, trademarks, patents and industrial designs. A registered intellectual property assigns exclusive rights to the inventor. India has been rich by way of traditional knowledge and research. However, due to the fact that it is mostly undocumented and the laws of patents are not very conducive, India has not been able to gain by way of intellectual property. The Patents Act 1970, where process patents were granted, replaced the British Regime Act, but was not successful in increasing the knowledge wealth of the nation. The various amendments of 1999, 2002 and 2005 have been able to remove some lacunae in our legislation. The Indian laws have been amended to comply with the provisions of the TRIPS agreement, but have not been able to take advantage of its flexibility. The law could have been much better drafted to suit the national interest. With the passage of time and implementation of the Patent regime, India can look forward to more litigations and consequent judicial pronouncements than the number of sections in the Acts. Knowledge is economic strength and India is losing out on this front due to lack of suitable protective legislation regarding intellectual property. There are various provisions of the acts and amendments, which need further critical evaluation as some issues are highly paradoxical in nature. The book highlights these issue at the national and the international levels. It is backed with various cases that have occurred in the world of business.