What do you mean by the terms Patent, Design,
Trademark and Copyright? Explain briefly the role of WTO and WIPO on IPR
issues.
Ans
1.
Clear or obvious on the fact of it.
2. Limited legal
monopoly granted to an individual or firm to make, use,
and sell its invention, and to exclude others from doing so. An
invention is patentable if it is novel, useful, and non-obvious.
To receive a patent, a patent
application must disclose all details of the invention so that
others can use it to further advance the technology with
new inventions. Patentable items fall under four classes
(1) Machine: apparatus or device with interrelated parts that work together
to perform the invention's designed or intended functions,
(2) Manufacture: all manufactured or fabricated items, (3) Process:
chemical, mechanical, electrical or other process that produces a
chemical or physical change in thecondition or character of
an item, and (4) Composition of matter:
chemical compounds or mixtures having properties different
from their constituent ingredients. In most of the world, patents are
granted on the 'first to apply' basis, with a protection period of
7 years (India) to 20 years (European Union). In the US, they are granted for
17 years on the 'first to invent' basis. Responsibility of
identifying, locating, and suing the patent violators, however, rests solely
with the patent holder; patent law provides only means of prosecution and
determination of just compensation.
Trademark
A Trademark is the means by which a business makes
itself visible in the marketplace. A Trademark can be any distinctive (not
solely descriptive) name or logo. The best Trademarks are instantly
recognizable and conjure up in the minds of existing or potential customers
things like quality, dependability, or at the very least the source of the
goods or services being bought.
A trademark is often defined as: “a word, name, symbol or device that is used in trade with goods to indicate the source of the goods and to distinguish them from the goods of others”. A service mark is the same as a trademark except that it identifies and distinguishes the source of a service rather than a product. The terms "trademark" and "mark" are commonly used to refer to both trademarks and service marks
Examples of well-known Trademarks are: Coca-Cola, Rolls-Royce, The Apple logo and the Nike “swoosh”.
Examples of well-known Trademarks are: Coca-Cola, Rolls-Royce, The Apple logo and the Nike “swoosh”.
Prudent business people register their Trademarks with Patent Offices to gain an official record of their rights to a particular mark. A Trademark registration also grants a statutory right, subject to certain conditions, to prevent others from using the trademark without the registered owner's permission - i.e. to prevent infringement.
One of the principal aims of a business is to build up the reputation of its goods or services and by applying for and gaining a Registered Trademark accelerates the process as it serves notice on would-be copiers of the serious intent of a business to defend its position in the marketplace.
If a Trademark is properly promoted and protected it can be a very valuable asset for any business and can in some circumstances be worth more than the bricks and mortar of a business.
Generally, Registered Trademarks are protected for specific classes of products and services for periods of 10 years, which are renewal indefinitely.
One of the principal aims of a business is to build up the reputation of its goods or services and by applying for and gaining a Registered Trademark accelerates the process as it serves notice on would-be copiers of the serious intent of a business to defend its position in the marketplace.
If a Trademark is properly promoted and protected it can be a very valuable asset for any business and can in some circumstances be worth more than the bricks and mortar of a business.
Generally, Registered Trademarks are protected for specific classes of products and services for periods of 10 years, which are renewal indefinitely.
If a Trademark is properly promoted and protected it can be a very valuable asset for any business and can in some circumstances be worth more than the bricks and mortar of a business.
Generally, Registered Trademarks are protected for specific classes of products and services for periods of 10 years, which are renewal indefinitely.
Generally, Registered Trademarks are protected for specific classes of products and services for periods of 10 years, which are renewal indefinitely.
The president of Coca-Cola has even publicly remarked that if all of the company’s buildings, vehicles factories and equipment were destroyed Coca-Cola Inc would immerge from the ruins and rebuild itself provided that the Trademark survived. The loss of the Coca-Cola mark however, would damage the company beyond repair.
It is estimated that Coca-Cola Inc has a stock value of about 160 billion dollars, with the value of the physical assets being put at around 20 billion dollars. The value remaining is therefore about 140 billion dollars. This is made up of its goodwill or the intangibles of the business. So, for a company like Coca Cola, the most valuable intangible that they have is the Coca Cola trademark, the Coca Cola brand. Even if the brand makes up only half of the intangibles of the business then the Brand alone is conservatively worth 70 billion dollars.
The president of Coca-Cola has even publicly remarked that if all of the company’s buildings, vehicles factories and equipment were destroyed Coca-Cola Inc would immerge from the ruins and rebuild itself provided that the Trademark survived. The loss of the Coca-Cola mark however, would damage the company beyond repair.
It is estimated that Coca-Cola Inc has a stock value of about 160 billion dollars, with the value of the physical assets being put at around 20 billion dollars. The value remaining is therefore about 140 billion dollars. This is made up of its goodwill or the intangibles of the business. So, for a company like Coca Cola, the most valuable intangible that they have is the Coca Cola trademark, the Coca Cola brand. Even if the brand makes up only half of the intangibles of the business then the Brand alone is conservatively worth 70 billion dollars.
It is estimated that Coca-Cola Inc has a stock value of about 160 billion dollars, with the value of the physical assets being put at around 20 billion dollars. The value remaining is therefore about 140 billion dollars. This is made up of its goodwill or the intangibles of the business. So, for a company like Coca Cola, the most valuable intangible that they have is the Coca Cola trademark, the Coca Cola brand. Even if the brand makes up only half of the intangibles of the business then the Brand alone is conservatively worth 70 billion dollars.
Trademarks provide their
owners with the legal right to prevent others from using a confusingly similar
mark. They cannot be used stop competitors from making the same goods or from
selling the same goods or services under a clearly different mark.
Why register A
Trademark?
How Valuable is a
Trademark?
There is much talk today
about “the shop front” and “the High Street”. These terms are used colloquially
to refer to business visibility and to company profile. To provide some
indication of the value of a trademark one needs to look no further than
Coca-Cola. Coca-cola is immediately recognizable. It is an icon for capitalism
and private enterprise - and it is the most valuable piece of intellectual
property in the world today.
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most
governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to
it, usually for a limited time. Generally, it is "the right to copy",
but also gives the copyright holder the right to be credited for the work, to
determine who may adapt the work to other forms, who may perform the work, who
may financially benefit from it, and other related rights. It is a form of intellectual
property (like the patent, the trademark, and the trade
secret) applicable to any expressible form of an idea or information that is
substantive and discrete.
Copyright initially was
conceived as a way for government to restrict printing; the contemporary intent
of copyright is to promote the creation of new works by giving authors control
of and profit from them. Copyrights are said to be territorial, which means
that they do not extend beyond the territory of a specific state unless that
state is a party to an international agreement. Today, however, this is less
relevant since most countries are parties to at least one such agreement. While
many aspects of national copyright laws have been standardized through international
copyright agreements, copyright laws of most countries have some unique
features. Typically, the duration of copyright is the whole life of the
creator plus fifty to a hundred years from the creator's death, or a finite
period for anonymous or corporate creations. Some jurisdictions have required formalitiesto
establishing copyright, but most recognize copyright in any completed work,
without formal registration. Generally, copyright is enforced as a civil matter,
though some jurisdictions do apply criminal sanctions.
Headquartered in Geneva,
Switzerland, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) comprises one
of 16 specialized international agencies affiliated with the United Nations
(UN). WIPO oversees the enforcement of 21 international treaties concerning the
protection of intellectual property. By 2000, it possessed 175 member nations
and an international staff of 760. WIPO is funded primarily through earnings
from its three major intellectual property registration systems.
International safeguards
for intellectual property, such as patents and trademarks, began in 1883 with
the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property. The Paris
Convention granted protection to inventors for their inventions and ideas in
foreign countries, as well as their country of residence. The 14 signatory
nations instituted an International Bureau—a forerunner of WIPO—to enforce the
Convention's terms. The international protection of artistic intellectual
property followed in 1886 with the drafting of the Berne Convention for the
Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. It gave artists and other creators
control over the use of, and payment for, their works in the fine and
performing arts. The Berne Convention also instituted a regulatory bureau. The
two bureaus merged in 1893 into the United International Bureaux for the
Protection of Intellectual Property (BIRPI), located in Berne, Switzerland.
BIRPI formed the nucleus for WIPO.
BIRPI transferred to
Geneva in 1960 and in 1970 changed its name to WIPO; it became a UN
organization four years later. In 1996, WIPO entered a cooperative agreement
with the World Trade Organization (WTO). WIPO's duties have grown from
administering four international treaties to administering 21. Its work is
conducted through its secretariat and by its member states. Among its primary
duties, WIPO attempts to harmonize intellectual property legislation among
nations, assist with applications for industrial property rights, arbitrate
private intellectual property disputes, and help nations share intellectual
property information.
WIPO fosters
international intellectual property protection through 11 treaties that
delineate common intellectual-property protection standards; all States that
sign these treaties agree to enforce them within their own territories. Several
WIPO treaties—the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), Madrid Agreement, and the
Hague Agreement—directly protect international patents, trademarks, and
industrial designs, by guaranteeing that a single international filing is
enforced by all WIPO signatory States. These treaties allow a creator or
inventor to avoid making individual applications in each country for which they
would like to obtain intellectual property protection. Between 1979 and 1999,
the number of international patent applications increased nearly 30-fold.
WIPO generated several
initiatives to tackle the burgeoning importance of information technology with
regard to international intellectual-property issues. WIPO addressed the
expanding world of global e-commerce in 1999, when it announced its Digital
Agenda—an initiative to develop programs and procedures that encourage the
online dissemination and use of intellectual property, such as music, films,
and trade marks, while safeguarding the rights of creators and owners. The
Digital Agenda also targets the need to integrate developing countries into the
global online environment, since they are in danger of falling behind
industrialized nations with the growing digital divide. Finally, the Digital
Agenda seeks to modify existing intellectual property laws so that they address
the particular intellectual property concerns associated with the Web.
In January 2000 WIPO
launched the Information Management for the Patent Cooperation Treaty (IM-PACT)
Project. IMPACT, which constitutes the organization's largest information
technology undertaking to date, will fully automate the workings of the PCT by
providing electronic filing capabilities for applicants and electronic data
transfer between WIPO, patent offices, and the PCT International Searching and
Preliminary Examining Authorities.
Another such endeavor is
WIPOnet, an online network linking independent intellectual property offices
around the globe. Besides permitting the swift exchange of information, the
streamlining of application procedures, and the development of common
intellectual property standards, WIPOnet seeks to integrate developing
countries within the digital environment. To this end, WIPO helps furnish
intellectual property offices in such nations with Internet connections and
basic information technology equipment. Modernization of intellectual property
systems in developing countries is also facilitated through WIPO's
Nationally-Focused Action Plans (NFAPs), which are tailored to the needs of each
country.
In 1999, WIPO turned its attention to the
increasingly common problem of "cybersquatting." Cybersquatters
register domain names that approximate the names of well-known companies,
brands, or celebrities. Squatters try to generate profit from the high
recognition value of such names by drawing traffic to their sites, reselling
the name, or holding the name for "ransom" in hopes of accruing a
payoff from the entity whose name has been appropriated. The Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has authorized WIPO to
handle cases filed under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy.
Many media celebrities have taken their cybersquatting complaints to WIPO for
arbitration.
