Protection of Intellectual Property Rights through IPR Compliance Services as a Strong Method

Intellectual property is that intangible property which is currently ruling the entire world. Intellectual property holds a very important place in everybody’s life but the problem is that generally after hearing this name common people don’t give a positive reaction. They don’t seem to follow the term “intellectual property” but this term is found in everyday life of the people which customers totally ignore. The products they buy daily, like all the packaged products deal with intellectual property law which is trademark and this is one which is closely related to the consumer’s daily life. Further there are other intellectual property laws and forms like copyright which is associated with any new literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work, and then we have patents, trade secrets, biodiversity etc. These all are different forms which touch the life of the consumers or common people in different ways. It may happen that they are not directly associated with the consumers but indirectly they are related to them.

As intellectual property is not properly known and people are not aware of this basic concept as a core, due to which both the consumers and brand owners face huge problems because both of them can’t solve the problem because lack of the knowledge, where on one side the consumers lack the basic knowledge, on the other side, the brand owners don’t get the information about the fake products. So, basically it becomes a losing situation for both the stakeholders.

The basic problem why intellectual property law is still lacking in India is because of the fact of lack of awareness about the same and lack of service providers in regard to the IPR problems and thus it fails in addressing such IPR related situations and problems. It is important for every stakeholder to know about brand protection investigators in India so that they can reach to the bottom of the problems relating to IPR. This field can only grow and get rid of problems when there is proper support of all the stakeholders and also various portals or agencies which are trying to help in this field. Investigating before registering the complaint not only clarifies the situation but also provide us with strong evidence in order to carry on our complain procedure.

In any kind of IPR related issues both consumers and brand owners who are at stake should take proper help of IPR help portals or platforms which provide all kinds of IPR compliance services like reporting complaints on fake brands and investigating on the same. We are here talking in particular reference to the trademark because that’s the only one intellectual property which is directly associated with the consumers and brand owners and trademark also connects both the consumers and brand owners as the trademark represents the brand and origin of the product in the market.

Intellectual property holds a very important place in our day to day life which gets ignored but should be kept on priority as the rise in fake brands is tremendous and to control piracy IPR services are important which are rendered by various online platforms like Brands and Fakes which is a well known online platform which provides solutions to all such IPR problems. So, these IPR compliance services should be given much more importance in order curb piracy and they can result in strong method of checking piracy.

      

Role of Intellectual Property in Protection of Biodiversity in Relation to Brand Protection

All living creatures including man together constitute biodiversity and they are dependent on each other for their existence and survival and this makes biodiversity necessary which therefore means that conservation of biodiversity is equally important. The word ‘biodiversity’ consists of two words ‘bio’ which means life and ‘diversity’ which means variability as it includes various life forms, so, biodiversity means existence of a huge number of various kinds of animals and plants which make a balanced environment.

Biodiversity has been brought to an international level by Convention on Biological diversity, 1992, also known as CBD which showed the concern for the conservation and protection of biodiversity. India enacted the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 in order to provide legislative recognition to the conservation of biodiversity. The main objectives of the biodiversity law are:

Ø  Conservation of biological diversity:

This can be done in two ways that is either conserving habitat in its natural habitat or conserving it in place other than the natural habitat.

Ø  Sustainable use of the components of biological diversity:

This means using and saving adequate for the future generation.

Ø  Equitable benefit sharing:

This means sharing the benefit which we get out of bio-resources in an equitable manner.

Further it’s important to know that why there is a relationship between intellectual property and biodiversity?

The relationship exists between them due to ‘bio-piracy’ which mean stealing or robbing the bio-resources or knowledge related to bio-resources. The knowledge which vests in bio-resources is not new and is being carried on from generation to generation and this knowledge is termed as ‘traditional- knowledge’ which is at stake because it is consistently being misused by people and organizations and traditional knowledge comes under intellectual property. Thus, they are directly related to each other. So, where there will be chances to harm the biodiversity in any manner there will be involvement of intellectual property law.

Now, we come to the basic issue which is the role of intellectual property law in protection of biodiversity for which it is necessary that we know the relationship between two laws.

Starting with patents, the bio-resources and traditional knowledge by themselves can’t be protected under patent law but patent may be granted on inventions based on traditional knowledge and/or bio-resources.

Bio-resources can be further protected under trade secret, geographical indications and under the plant varieties protection law. So, it may be noted that intellectual property laws are either directly or indirectly related to biodiversity law, the above mentioned laws that is the Patents Act, 1970; the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999 and the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Act, 2001 are directly related to traditional knowledge, biodiversity and bio-piracy, where mainly dominated by patents.

The Copyright Act, 1957 is indirectly related with the traditional knowledge, biodiversity and bio-piracy as if the traditional knowledge is in a written form it may be copyrightable under the head of the literary work.

Trade mark may be used as a marketing tool for products involving traditional knowledge and biological material. It also provides us with the information on fake products and identifies them which help in stopping the piracy.

So, it appears that intellectual property laws are intensely related to the biodiversity and helps in protecting the biodiversity. Further, the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 makes express provisions regarding intellectual property under section 6 of the Act which empowers the National Biodiversity Authority to grant approval for obtaining an intellectual property right relating to a biological resource.

Hence, it is balance between the two laws and both works together for the protection of biodiversity. As India is growing in every aspect which also opens up the vulnerability of Indian bio-resources because it is one country which is blessed with bio-resources in abundance and globalization seems to be a threat for all these. Thus, the involvement of intellectual property laws becomes necessary either directly or indirectly and they play a great role in protecting biodiversity that arises from the relationship between both laws.

The companies or enterprises dealing with the bio-resources equally need to protect themselves from the bio-piracy and other threats both nationally and internationally for which they can take help of the brand protection services in India which provides platforms to fight against all these and one such well known platform is Brands and Fakes.

    

Food Brand Piracy: Fighting Food Brand Counterfeiting In India Necessary

“Food” what does this word speaks? The word is enough to describe the one of the most valuable part of our life or should I say it’s the basis of our life. If there is no food there is no possibility of life and food and hunger makes a person do many things. It’s a simple answer to the question that why we work that is to earn money and why we earn money because we need to survive and food is an important element of survival but when we see the current scenario there are thousands of food brands which are available in the market and they guarantee the best quality in whatever they sell like biscuits, ice- cream, rice, lenticels, sugar, salt and the list goes on. We also look for brands in these food products because they assure quality which is hard to find in the loose food items sold by the vendors or general retail stores but do you think that the pirates are not smart enough then let me clear it that they are way smarter than the poor consumers because they know very well how to manipulate consumers and especially their target are the unaware lot of the consumers.

Very many food brand owners and consumers both are very troubled because of the fake food brands available in the market. The consumers are troubled because the quality they look for, is not available and also feel cheated as they expect something else than what they get, they are cheated on both levels of monetary as they pay for something else and they get something else and health levels because the fake products uses low and degraded quality of products which directly and adversely affects the health of the consumer. The brand owners are not directly affected by the brand piracy but are indirectly adversely affected as they have their name at the stake. Their brand name is misused and they lose their reputation which leads to loss of customers and further loss of business and money. So we can clearly see that there is a two way loss and these losses can’t be compensated.

The question which comes to our mind after reading this is that then how can we not become a victim of this brand piracy and how can we fight counterfeiting in India? The answer is quite simple which is we need to take precautions rather than looking for the cure.

Both consumers and brand owners need to be aware about the market. While the consumers should keep a full check on the trademarks they use and should check the trademark, the packaging, the maximum retail price, the manufacturing date, the bar code for the product etc. thoroughly before buying where as the brand owners should keep on promoting awareness about their trademark and product in order to keep the consumers well informed about their brand and food product so that the consumers can easily distinguish between the fake and genuine products  which can help in maintenance of quality standards and help both the brand owners and customers to fight against the losses which could occur in future.

Apart from these steps to be followed as a precautionary measure they can also complain for the same if they encounter any such mishap of fake food packaged products they can report the same on the online portals which help in providing a platform to both the brand owners and customers so that they can fight against these pirates and Brands and Fakes is one of such reliable and well received online platform.     

TRADEMARK REGISTRATION: A NECESSITY FOR BRAND PROTECTION AND GUARD AGAINST FAKE PRODUCTS

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2. Trademark is a mark which differentiates a good from other goods and also it informs the consumers about the source of good. This is how trademark has been generally referred which is true, though, now the scenario is a bit different as trademark has been associated with the brand value which is increasing day by day and with these increase there is increase in the negative points like trademark infringement, passing off of goods which is a caution to the brand owners that they should keep a close check on their trademark so that they are far from all these threats. It is agreed that even years before these dangers were present to one’s trademark but one cannot deny that it has increased abundantly with passing time and today no one can even imagine to what extent it has reached.
   However, our trademark law that is the Trade Marks Act, 1999 doesn’t mandate the registration of the trademark and provides a remedy of passing off in case of violation of trademark rights but passing off remedy is more difficult in nature because the burden of proof lies on the plaintiff (the one who files the complaint) and he has to prove the ‘classical trinity’ as referred in the case of Reckitt & Coleman v. Borden (1990) which is as following:
   
   

   • One has to establish that the reputation of plaintiff is hampered by the use of the mark

   
   

   • Establish that misrepresentation made by the defendant to the consumer.

   
   

   • Such misrepresentation has caused or is likely to cause damage to the reputation of the plaintiff’s business.
   After these three grounds are proved the plaintiff will succeed in the remedy of passing off. Further in the case of Durga Dutt Sharma v. Navratna Pharmaceutical Lab (1965), certain points of differences have been highlighted between infringement and passing off:
   
   

   • In an action for infringement the right of the plaintiff is established by the evidence of registration. Therefore, registration itself acts as a proof, whereas, in an action for passing off the right of the plaintiff is based on the reputation of the plaintiff’s business.

   
   

   • Trademark infringement is a statutory right whereas passing off is a common law right.

   
   

   • Trademark registration is an exclusive right and property to be protected in the exclusive right is to use a particular mark whereas in passing off property which has to be protected is the reputation of plaintiff.
   In passing off the defendant might escape the liability if he can show added material on the packaging etc. which distinguishes his goods from the goods of the plaintiff where even the trademark owner has the information of fake products suffers loss and is unable to protect hi brand but that is not in the case of infringement and thus infringement is very strict as a remedy. 
   Thus, it is very necessary to get one’s trademark registered so that they can protect their brands adequately and brand owners can also contact the brand protection services in India which will help them in providing a platform to fight for their rights and Brand and Fakes is one such well known platform.