Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) is a legal concept that grants exclusive protections to creators over their intangible creations, such as inventions, literary works, and brand identifiers, to incentivize innovation and economic growth. The concept's origins trace back to the grant of a one-year patent in Sybaris, Greece, around 500 BCE, with the modern statutory framework beginning with the British Statute of Monopolies in 1623. In India, the first law was the Act VI on protection of inventions in 1856.
The Indian IPR regime is governed by several key Acts, including the Patents Act, 1970, the Copyright Act, 1957, the Trade Marks Act, 1999, and the Designs Act, 2000. Under the Patents Act, 1970, a patent grants the inventor an exclusive right for 20 years from the filing date for a product or process that is novel and involves an inventive step. The Copyright Act, 1957, protects original literary and artistic works, typically for the author's lifetime plus sixty years.
IPR connects India to international frameworks like the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) of the WTO, and India is a member of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Domestically, the Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs, and Trade Marks (CGPDTM) under the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) administers these laws.
Recently, the Patents (Amendment) Rules, 2024, effective March 15, 2024, significantly reduced the time limit for requesting examination (RFE) from 48 months to 31 months. Furthermore, the Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Act, 2023, amended the IPR Acts to decriminalize certain offences by replacing imprisonment with a monetary penalty, while the core protections of the Acts remain in force.