The Preservation of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) (patents, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets) has gone through major changes in the last two decades.

What is it all about?

Intellectual property protection enables you to prevent people from stealing or copying:

• Name of your product/brand
• Your Inventions
• UX and UI of your products
• Content you are curating

Intellectual property is a unique item that you have created. An idea alone cannot be considered as intellectual property.

Owning it:

You own it only if you have:

• Created it and it complies with the requisites for a copyright, patent or a design
• Purchased the Intellectual property rights  (IPRs) from the creator or the person who owned it previously
• You have a brand that can be a trademark

Points to Remember:

• IPR can have more than one owner
• IP can belong to an individual or an organization
• It can be sold or transferred

In case you are self-employed, you are the owner of the intellectual property, even if someone else headed the project. But if you have a contract with them that bestows the rights to them then that is a different issue. For law firm personal injury and bankruptcy law attorney, you just need to spend a few moments with your computer.

How to protect your intellectual property?

This is basically taking legal action against the person who steals or copies it.

Types of protection

It depends upon what you have created. You need to apply for the protection in most of the cases.

The table given below might appear to be handy for people who are planning to apply:

• Trademarks- Product names, logos. Jingles etc.
• Registered Designs- Product appearance, shape, color, packaging etc
• Patents- Inventions and products

These remain a secret till they are registered. In case you need to discuss it with someone you can do so, after signing the non-disclosure agreement.

More than one kind of protection can be applicable for a single product:

• Name and logo has been registered as trademark
• Shape and design have been registered separately
• Patented a completely new part of the product
• Copyrighted the drawings of the product

The two primary areas of IPRs are:

a)Copyrights and rights with regard to copyright

The rights of the creators of literary and artistic works are protected by copyright, for a period of 50 ears after the death of the creator. The sole purpose of protecting the rights is to encourage and reward creative work.

b)Industrial Property

• Protection of signs that separate the goods or services of one organization from another. This is done to enable competition and protect the consumers, by allowing them to make informed choices amongst different goods and services. The protection can be applicable for a lifetime, provided the sig continues to be distinctive
• Another form of industrial property is protected primarily to fuel innovation, design and curation of advanced technology.  Industrial Designs, Inventions and trade secrets form a part of this. Protection in case of patents is given normally for a period of twenty years.