Patents, Trademarks and Copyrights: An Overview
Intellectual Properties have been able to allure attention of the global market, the three major form of Intellectual Properties Copyrights, Trademarks and Patents have played a major role in all fields of industries such as automotive, music, electronic, food and further more. The proprietors of intellectual properties are eager to protect their inventions, artistic works, brand identity and to yield benefits from the same.
The very basic concept of Intellectual property laws is to give innovator and creators legal rights to protect and benefit from their intangible assets, these laws protect the original creation from using, copying dealing or damaging by any kind of any unauthorized and illegal use. Though all intellectual protection shall be converted into a physical application of the idea.
To know more about how these intellectual property rights are different from each other, we shall first have a glance what does actually each form of Intellectual properties covers;
What is a Patent?
Being one of the most important and complicated form IPR, Patents can be defined as a legal right provided to innovators for their new inventions, it vests an exclusive right to the inventor to protect their inventions and is most essential rights for the same.
In India patents are governed under The Patents Act 1970 and The Patent rules 1970, over the last 5 decades the laws have been amended as per necessitated requirements such as granting protection to goods like food, pharma and chemical inventions.
If one seeks to obtain a patent, one has to make sure that their invention fulfils the minimum requirements as per the laid down laws, which states that an invention muse be new, non-obvious and must have an industrial application.
What is a Copyright?
Copyrights have been eye candies for entertainment and various other industries, the creators using their artistic ideas in the field of literature, drama music, computer programmes and so forth seeks to protect their creation or artistic work from being copied, replicated and distributed unauthorizedly.
The rights that are vested with the creator are to protect the expression of an idea and not the idea itself, the same has been set out in the laws governing copyrights in India which are The Copyrights Act 1957 and The Copyright Act 1958. Further to mention copyrights can be broken in two parts; 1. Economic rights, which let the creators to attract economic benefits for their work, the same are transferrable to a third party through various ways such as broadcasting, assignment, licencing and so forth; 2. Moral rights which are not transferable.
What is Trademark
We have been through the era of globalization, and now seeing the peak of it in the last decade. The market has been flooded by new brands in the race of making an identity for themselves and the existing ones are trying to maintain their identity.
Trademarks can be considered as an essential tool for brands to protect their brand’s goodwill and letting people to differentiate better among goods and services provided by one company to goods and services provided by some other company.
Trademarks can be symbols, words, graphics which usually consists brand names, logos and so forth or a combination. The same has to be unique, non-descriptive and uncommon, the same has be set under the governing law i.e. The Trade marks act 1999 and The Trade marks rules 2018.
Copyright Vs. Trademark Vs. Patent: Know the Difference
When we read about Copyright, Trademarks and Patents, it provides a clear understanding that even though all three of them falls under the brackets of intellectual property but are different from each other in various aspects.
Herein below we talk about general difference between Copy rights, Trademarks and Patents;
1. What’s protected
By this far we have talked about what copyright, trademark and patents are, which gives us a brief idea about what they try to protect and same can be simplified further as;
| Category | Description |
|---|---|
| Copyrights | Copyrights aim to protect intellectually created artistic and literary works such as books, coded programs, songs existing in a tangible medium, including hard copies as well as digital copies. |
| Trademarks | Trademarks can be a protected word, phrase, label, or a combination of the same. The aim behind granting trademarks is to protect brand identity and make it easier for the public to distinguish between similar goods and services based on their originator. |
| Patents | Technical innovations, such as fresh, original machine designs usable across industries, mechanical processes like complicated machinery, or chemical compositions like pharmaceutical drugs, are protected under patents. The main aim is to encourage inventors to protect their inventions from unauthorized use. |
2. Essentials requirements to be protected
| Category | Description |
|---|---|
| Copyright | Copyrights can only be procured for creative expressions present in a tangible form that can be read, heard, or seen. A key requirement for obtaining a copyright is the originality of the work, which should not have been published before. |
| Trademarks | To register a trademark, the existing laws require the mark to be capable of being represented graphically on paper, able to distinguish the goods or services of the applicant from others, and should not be common or misleading. |
| Patents | The essential requirements for registering a patent include novelty, inventiveness, non-obvious nature, and industrial application. Additionally, the invention must not contradict Section 3 and Section 4 of The Patents Act 1970. |
3. Term of Protection
| Category | Protection Duration |
|---|---|
| Copyright | Generally, copyright is granted protection for 60 years, calculated from the year of the author’s death. |
| Trademarks | A trademark is protected for 10 years from the date of application. It can be renewed indefinitely as per the procedure laid down in the governing laws. |
| Patents | Patents are protected for a period of 20 years from the date of filing of the application. |
4. Rights Granted
| Category | Description |
|---|---|
| Copyrights | Obtaining a copyright grants you with several protection including right of reproduction, distribution, rental, importation, public performance, broadcasting, communication to public and making available to public, further it gives rights for translation and adaptation of the work and moral rights as well. |
| Trademarks | A registered trademark confers several rights with the registered owner such as right to exclusive use, right to use statutory remedy against infringement, right to assign and right to register correction. |
| Patents | A patent grants the inventor with right to manufacture, use, sell, distribute, assign, licence, surrender, patent addition and right to use statutory remedy against infringement. |
5. What’s an example?
| Category | Description |
|---|---|
| Copyright | Architectural drawings, plans, buildings, sound recordings, motion pictures, audio-visual works, graphic, pictorial, sculptural works and so forth. |
| Trademarks | Any word or representation which fulfils the requirements of trademark can be a registered trademark for example – Cadbury, Nestle, BMW and such more. |
| Patents | Patents can be for any invention which has a practical application in the industry like Apple iPhones, combustion engines, Dropbox, Facebook, GoPro and so forth. |
6. Symbolic representations:
| Category | Symbol Description |
|---|---|
| Copyright | Copyright symbol or designated copyright symbol is the circled C, i.e. “©”. The circled C is used for creative works except sound protection which is represented by a circled P mark, i.e. “℗”. |
| Trademark | Trademark symbols or designated trademark symbols are: TM for marks applied for registration but aren’t registered, ’R’ enclosed in a circle or ‘®’ for registered marks, and SM for marks dealing with services. |
| Patents | There are no typographic symbols representing patents. |
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