Blog Details

Author - Associate Aliza Abdin

What are Intellectual Property Rights?

Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) are property rights acquired through different processes such as patents, copyrights, and trademarks. These rights extend to the ownership of certain intellectual and creative ideas such as literary and artistic works (protected by copyright), inventions (protected by patents), signs or symbols for characteristic goods of an enterprise (protected by trademarks) and other essentials of industrial property such as developments, scholarly and aesthetic works, structures, and images, names, and pictures utilized in business. Apart from giving the owner ownership for the particular idea for a limited period of time, it also gives the owner the exclusive right to exercise a monopoly on the use of such an idea.

Intellectual property rights are protected by law and the legal framework encourages more and more people to come out with new and creative ideas and claim them respectively. It also restricts the scope of imitation and duplication. IPR achieves its objective of creation of extensive diversity of intellectual goods by giving people financing and economic backing through profits earned by their respective intellectual properties.

IPR is a wide topic including various laws as it has to maintain a firm balance between rights that are strong enough to encourage the formation of intellectual goods but not as strong as to stop the goods wide use.

How to apply for one’s universal application

The first and the foremost step to apply for a global IPR application through the Madrid system is to check the eligibility. To be eligible to apply for an application, a person should fulfill two main necessities, namely:

Qualification

To be qualified to make use of the Madrid System, one should initially have an association with one of its individuals (known as "Contracting Parties"). This association will decide one’s office of the starting point (national/territorial protected innovation office) that would provide further instructions for the application. One should present their universal application through this Office of cause.

In order to qualify for the privilege necessity, one should meet the following requirements:

Have a business, mostly a genuine and powerful mechanical or business foundation in a Contracting Party

Be domiciled in a Contracting Party or be a national of a Contracting Party (A person having a business in India or a national of India will document the worldwide application through the Country’s Intellectual Property Office.

A person can make use of the International Application Simulator to check the qualification requirements to document a global application under the Madrid System.

Essential application/enrolment (officially known as “fundamental imprint")

If a person has the fundamental association with a Madrid System part as defined above, then s/he should have either connected for or gotten an imprint with the IP Office of that part (i.e., the Office of Inception) as a fundamental imprint is required before the person can document a global application for one’s imprint (official Form MM2) through a similar Office (usually the person’s Office of birthplace).

Steps to Document one’s Global Application  

After the person has contacted and enlisted a local imprint with the Office of starting point (as it were and when the person has acquired an "essential imprint"), through the Madrid System. This application must be submitted to the Office of the cause, which will look and make sure that it compares with the specifics of the fundamental imprint, guarantee the universal application, and submit it to WIPO afterward.

A step by step guide is given below for the documentation of an IPR Global application.

Application Form

In order to record a universal application, a form available (Form MM2 1) which is accessible in English, French, and Spanish must be made use of. Electronic filing of the universal application is also available.

Examination of products and ventures

Once a person has selected the products and ventures for which he is filing the global application he cannot extend or expand the rundown of merchandise and ventures after he has presented the worldwide application, not even to cover products and enterprises referenced in the fundamental imprint. In case he needs to expand the rundown after submitting Form MM2, the person will have to document another universal application.

Expenses

The expenses that are payable for the documentation of an application for global enrolment include the following charges.

1. The fundamental charge
2. A reciprocal charge for each Contracting Party assigned
3. A beneficial charge for each class of products and enterprises more than three.   

For certain Contracting Parties, the reciprocal charge is supplanted by a "singular expense". To affirm whether a Contracting Party is applying the individual charge (and the measure of such expense), one should check the rundown of Individual Fees.

Conclusion

Intellectual property is important as it protects and fosters innovation and creativity which gives birth to new ideas and therefore it is highly important to follow the respective procedure for getting the intellectual property copyrighted.

Having a legal framework for a person’s idea is always beneficial in the long run because, without proper and legal protection of ideas, businesses and individuals would not gather the full benefits of their inventions.