Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)

The hottest asset today that any organization seeks to have is IPR - Intellectual Property Rights. It's this drive that led me to compose this post !!

In today's context, where globalization and technology is re-defining the way the business is done and where ideas spread faster than speed of light, it is imperative for organization to protect the ingenious contributions of its employees in form of IPR.

IPR cover a wide range of intellectual outputs such as publicity material, work of art, a product design, a logo, chemical formulations, computer softwares etc. When a company have IPR over a particular assest, the other companies that use the same have to pay fees to the beholder of IPR. It is in this way that an organization can differentiate itself from the pack and also, continue to earn from its innovations.

An IP consists of various elements:

1. Trade Secrets : Trade secrets, as the name suggests, conform the unique knowledge that an organization or a person has developed using skills,people,and resources. This knowledge is supposed to provide competitive advantage to the organization in the marketplace by virtue of the fact that no one else knows the secrets. The strategies to maintain trade secrets involve cautionary steps such as restricting the availability of the knowledge, getting everyone who knows the secret to sign Non-disclosure agreement, mark any written material as Proprietary and Confidential.

2. Patents : Research and development is an expensive enterprise. The grant of patents to an organization ensure legal rights to company that ensure that the company is able to redeem the expenses incurred. An invention, usually a process or product, that ensures a novel approach and a significant improvement over the existing knowledge is patentable. A patent is provided by the Patent office and isvalid for 20 years.During this period no one can use, manipulate, and market the patented product or process without paying royality to the beholder. After 20 years, either the patent has to be re-inforced that inculcates some fees or a company has to for go the patent.
Patents are important becuase they allow space to organization to deploy there break-through products and services openly in market rather than holding on to it. Patents generally protect functional technology whereas copy rights protect artistic and written material.

3. TradeMark : The main purpose of a trademark is to serve as a differentiator from the products and services of other people in the marketplace. A consumer will begin to associate a particular registered trademark. Therefore a trademark should be carefully selected so that consumers can directly connect with the Trademark in this competitive marketplace. For instance the trademark of Tata group, the T in blue and white color directly associate every product or service offered by the group. The thought process behind selected trademark is significant and should be conducted by the top executives.

4. Copyrights: Basically a copyright protects expression of an thoughts and not the idea itself. Copyrights protect literary work such as softwares and advertisements, novels, poems and the like, and artistic work such as painting, photographs, sculptors etc.

5. Domain Names: A domain name is unique IP address on the internet. Domain names provide an easy way for the consumer to reach you in the over-crowded internet space.

Seems like lot of Gyan !! :)