Patent:

Patent is a form of intellectual property right. It protects the patentee's (the owner of a patent) interests for his invention.

A Patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by the government to a patentee for a fixed period of time in exchange for the regulated public disclosure of certain details of an invention: a device or a method,process or composition of matter which is new, inventive and useful , industrially useful or commercially exploitable.

The exclusive right granted to a pantentee is the right to prevent or exclude others from making using, selling, offering to sell or importing the claimed invention. The rights granted does not include the right to make, use or sell the invention themselves.

The patantee may have to comply with other laws and regulations.

Example: A pharmaceutical company that obtains a patent on a new drug has to obtain approval from regulatory bodies

Copyright: An Introduction

Copyright is one form of intellectual property right. It protects the rights of the author of "literary and artistic works".

What is a copy right?

When a person creates a literary, musical, dramatical, scientific or artistic work, he or she becomes the author of that work. This authorship gives him the freedom to decide on its use. The author of the work can control the destiny of the work. According to law, the work is protected by copyright from the moment it comes into existence, there is formality to be complied with such as registration with authorities. Mere ideas about work are not protected but they can be protected in crystallised in some concrete form such as about works. Copyright is a legal protection extended to the author of the rights in an original work that he has created.

Example:

• Author of a textbook or articles owns its copyright
• Lyricist own the copyright for lyrics such as film songs.

Definition of Copyright

Copyright is the exclusive right granted by law for certain number of years to make and dispose of and other wise to control copies of a literary, musical or artistic work.

Intelllectual Property(IP) Education

IP education today stands at a similar position, which general education(English) was at about 200 years back and management education was about 75 years ago. The promise of general education then was(is) to "liberate" people from parochial attitudes and to bring "world view" into every individual. The general education introduced us to a world of new possibilities: new explorations, new discoveries, new ways of governing and new ways of choosing our institutions. Today liberal education has regarded as one of the best thing that happened to us.

On a similar note IP education today promises us a new world of intellectual possibilities and enhanced prosperity. A possible world where people become creative and express their creativity by means of innovative solutions and products. A range of legal means such as patents, trademarks assure creative people of owning their creations and harness them for business and personal motivations. The new IP enabled world encourages people be more creative and as a consequence entire world would benefit. The mission of IP education is create awareness about this wonderful world of possibilities for creators and rest of the public

Forms of Intellectual Property

In law particularly common law jurisdiction intellectual property(IP) refers to a legal entitlement which sometime attaches to the expressed form of an idea or of other intangible subject matter.The Most well known form of intellectual property include copyrights, patents,trademarks & trade secrets. Common types of intellectual rights including

• Copyrights- which give the holder some exclusive rights to control some reproduction of works of authorship such as books and music, for a certain period of time
• Patents give the owner an exclusive right to prevent third parties from commercially exploiting an invention for certain specified period, usually 20 years from the date of a patent application
• Trade marks are distinctive phrases, manes or marks used to identify products to consumers
• Trade secrets, where a business firms keeps information secret, perhaps by enforcing a contract under which those given access to information are not permitted to disclose it to others

Lack of Patents: Economic Loss to India

India was losing at least 2000 patents every year in the United States and Europe on traditional formulations as 'our knowledge on these has never been documented,' Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh said here on Tuesday. For detailed story read news item in Hindu

Intellectual property and Patents

Intellectual property (IP) is a useful idea with scalable application potential. It is useful because it provides a mechanism to protect a new category of properties such as computer software or chemical formulae or even algorithms.

Patent is on of the available IP forms. It is a legal means to protect a novel invention. James Watt protected his steam engine with a patent. Patent allows disclosing of a novel invention to public while retaining awarding ownership to the inventor. Disclosure help the rest of the population to harness the new invention and ownership helps inventor to "earn" reputation and wealth