Patent Law in India

 The term ‘patent attorney’ is not specified or defined under Indian law. In India, a patent attorney refers to an advocate with specialized legal knowledge pertaining to patent laws and offers legal advice on patents. Patent laws entitle the patent owner to exclusive patent rights pertaining to his original inventions. Also, patent laws protect a product from the possibility of unethical imitations.  

‘Patent’ is a set of exclusive rights, that is usually granted based on following the right procedures elucidated through the patent law in India. The patent is granted to an inventor or his assignee, for a fixed period of time in exchange of public disclosure of an invention or discovery. The invention must be something new and original, such as a manufacturing process, machine or product. Based on patent law in India, the invention must be novel, unique and have industrial application.

Under patent laws in India, the patent holder is granted a 20 years’ monopoly by the State for any invention. Patent protection is still a debatable issue in some cases, such as in the case of computer programs. The Indian Patent Act, 1970 does not provide patent protection to computer programs. However, section 2(o) of the Copyright Act 1957 does provide protection for computer programs and computer data. This is because this section recognizes computer programs and computer data under creative works category that is entitled to copyright protection.

The Indian Patents Act, 1970 and the Patent Rules, 1972 govern the patent laws in India. Patent laws in India were first introduced by the British rulers to save the inventor interests through the Indian Patents and Design Act, 1911. The Indian Patents Act requires a company to follow a certain procedure to obtain patent right and gain commercial benefits from the invention.

So you think you have a brilliant business idea, but are unsure of how to pursue it profitably? The first thing to do is protect your ideas legally and ensure that it does not fall into the wrong hands. The best protection against idea theft is to deal with the right (see trustworthy) people. However, sometimes the lure of money is so great that even the most reliable people may resort to infringing an idea for their satisfying their vested interests.

The very concept of gene patenting sounds complex but it is not so difficult to understand once you grasp the basics. The US federal district court, during the first week of April, 2010, passed a landmark ruling that prohibited gene patenting.  Judge Robert Sweet issued the ruling in response to a case filed against the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) for granting exclusive rights of BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes to Myriad Genetics. These human genes are associated with curing breast and ovarian cancer. We all know how serious this is now, don’t we? The very word ‘cancer’ leaps out at us, right?