Current Trends of Intellectual Property Law in India

Abstract

The twenty-first century will be the century of knowledge, indeed the century of the intellect. A nation’s ability to translate knowledge into wealth and social good through innovations will determine its future. Thus, innovations hold the key to the creation as well as processing of knowledge. Intellectual property can be characterised as the property of ideas or their expression. It is a creation of the mind, which protects the rights of individuals and businesses who have transformed their ideas into the property by granting rights to the owners of those properties. Intellectual property can be classified into the following four categories: patents for inventions, copyrights for literary works, trademarks, and trade secrets. In recent years India has made robust progress not only in implementing its obligations under the WTO Agreement on TRIPs Rights but also in developing its own IP regime which endeavours to balance the trade-off between monopoly rights and free access to knowledge. Although no new IP laws have been enacted over the last year, it would be wrong to say that there have been no parliamentary developments with respect to intellectual property.