BLOG ON ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS IN INDIA

 

Intellectual Property may sound like a modern world invention but it has been actually around since the development of civilization. During the early 1800, the idea of a global protection of intellectual property right floated amongst legislative bodies. The history of Intellectual Property Rights, under the international law goes back to 1883 within the adoption of the Paris Convention, 1833 for the protection of Industrial Property. Then, three years later in the 1886, the Berne Convention extended the same protection of the intellectual property to written expressions and within half a year, trademarks were also granted protection in the international realm through the Madrid Protocol. With the adoption of the Madrid agreement, the first international intellectual property filing was launched in 1891 i.e. the Madrid System for the international registration of marks.

In 1993, the United International Bureau for the Protection of Intellectual Property (best known by its French acronym, BIRPI) was established and their organization was a common platform for the administration of both the Paris as well as the Berne Convention. In 1970, BIRPI got converted into The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). WIPO is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) since 1974. It carries out many tasks related to protection of intellectual property like administering international treaties, monitoring development in the IPR field, assisting government agencies and private sectors and harmonizing and simplifying rules and practices. The Stockholm Convention which established the WIPO, on 14 th July, 1967 in its Article 2 (viii) 6 provides that:

Intellectual property shall include rights relating to:

 Literary, artistic and scientific works;

 Performances by the artists, 

 Inventions or innovations in the fields of human endeavor;

 Scientific discoveries;

 Industrial designs;

 Trademarks, service marks and commercial names and designations.

 Protection against unfair competition;

and all other rights resulting from intellectual activity in the scientific, industrial, literary or artistic fields.

The WIPO became a part of the United Nations as a specialized agency to promote intellectual activities, facilitate technology transfer for accelerating economic development and stimulate creativity all over the world. Presently, the WIPO has 193-member states, and it administers 26 treaties including the WIPO convention.

The western development of the intellectual property law has greatly influenced the development of Indian intellectual property law. The Indian history of intellectual property rights protection, through legislative and judicial enactments have contributed a lot in its part in extending protection to the owners of trade marks who used sought protection under enactments like The Specific Relief Act, 1877 7 amended in the year 1963 and under Section 479 to Section 489 of the Indian penal Code, 1860. The transformation of intellectual property from the divine providence to valuable human talent took complicated turns and pitstops, however, the history of intellectual property reveals an imprint of how we have evolved as a society. It tells us of our past values, of our remarkable capacity and of our collective thought to strike a balance among individuality, spirituality and the society.

Although, the roads that we have passed were pockmarked with mistakes and were surrounded by dark alleys, the fact that we do recognize the imperfections and reinvented the current intellectual property law tells another thing about us that we can change.