Sentinels of the Intellect

Under Indian law, it is not necessary to register a copyright. If the work is

original and you are the first to make it public, you auto-matically have a

copyright over it. For instance, you develop software and you are the first to

bring it to market/advertise it or publish information about its existence, you

have a copyright over it. If anyone tries to duplicate this software and call it

his own, you can take him to court. However, it is important to be able to prove

that you were the first to take that software into the public domain. Under

Indian law, there’s no provision to patent software per se. In India, the

patents that are granted are for software combined with hardware. The USPT

(United States Patents and Trade) body does grant patents to software, business

methods etc–except for algorithms. However, according to European law, if

technical expertise is required to solve a problem and actually arrive at a

technical solution for the software being developed, then the software can be

patented.

Take

for instance, the software embedded in the telecom infrastructure. If one is to

change the architecture from a three-minute pulse to a two-minute one, it

requires modification in software. However, the relay, which responds to the

command of a three-minute pulse, has to be replaced by a relay with a two-minute

pulse. So this change in hardware can be used as a hardware-software

combination.

Patent: Patents relate to inventions and creations, completely new.

The inventor of the creation is expected to register the complete details of his

creation to the state. In return for this knowledge, the state gives him a

reward i.e. he is entitled to be the exclusive maker of the creation for the

next 20 years, and can challenge any counter-claims.

Trademark: A trademark is the right to use any name/logo or any such

intangible aspect that identifies a brand. Take for instance, the Coca Cola

trademark. When a consumer asks for Coca Cola, he is actually asking for a

drink, which is connected with the company that manufactures it and owns the

trademark–the trademark thus is responsible for the associating the source

(the company) with the product.

Copyright: A copyright is usually associated with a literary/artistic

work, architecture etc. The person, who creates this novel piece of work, gets

the exclusive right to use it for a period exceeding his life. A movie for

instance, has various facets–songs, soundtrack, lyrics, dialogue etc. Each of

these aspects is subject to copyright protection.

Manjiri Kalghatgi