IP Rights or Intellectual Property rights are the laws used to protect the monopoly of the creator over his original work through Copyrights, Trademark, Patent, Industrial design, Trade Secrets and Geographic Indication. Copyrights are used to protect the literary or artistic work of an individual or company. Trademark are used to differentiate between the goods and services of different companies. Patent rights given the right to the inventors to decide who can use their invention and how. Industrial Designs protects the features of an object (two dimensional or three dimensional) from being copied and used by another industry. Intellectual Property right on Trade Secrets is to protect the secret important commercial information from being leaked or conveyed to third person. Geographic Indication is the term used to recognize an item for its special geographic origin.[i]

PROTECTION OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS

Copyright or Patent or Trademark registers the creation under the name of the holder for a particular set time limit. Once registered the creator has the copyright for a term of his lifetime + 60 years after his death. In case of a Patent the term is 20 years from the date of filing whereas for trademark it is 10 years which can be extended again but these IP rights are also subject to criminal activities of theft, forgery etc which costs much more than any physical asset to a company or organization. If your IP is stolen, catching the criminal is hard, proving and prosecuting even harder and regaining the loss the hardest. Hence the IPR of the holders should also be protected to not only have monopoly over the creations but to gain from their work and labor. Legal Protection of IPR is necessary to encourage new innovation and it also contributes to economic and social development.

IP INVESTIAGTION

Investigation of Intellectual Property Rights is different from general forensic investigation in a crime scene. Some of the key points of IP Investigation process are:

Mark the specification of the devise that might be used in cybercrime of IP. Seize the devices and use particular specially designed tools to look for the material and proofs in the hard-drive. Scrutinize all the documents, pdfs etc and look for the deleted material and recover it. Search all the e-mails of sale of IP and make a proper report of everything you find about the IP related facts.[ii]

IP RIGHTS INVESTIGATION AND PROTECTION SERVICES

IP Rights Investigation & Protection Services includes a wide range of services. Some of them are: Anti-counterfeiting investigations; Investigation of infringement of Trademarks, Copyright, Patent and Design, Parallel Trade and Grey Market Investigation; IP Due Diligence; Litigation Services in IP Law; Geographical Indication Investigation; Conduction and Organization of Seizures; Consumer Protection; IP Monitoring Services; Common Law Research; Online Surveys and Investigation about the current Marketing Services; Trade Fare Monitoring; Company, Domain and Trademark Name Purchase; Auditing;; IP Deterrents; IP Sample Purchase; Vendor Information, etc.

There exist various companies which provide the companies and organizations of corporate world with these services to ensure them their IP Rights Protection and to protect one’s company’s IP Rights precautions must be taken along with guidance of such companies to not to suffer from any setback because of some discrepancy with the IP Rights.

[i] https://www.wipo.int/edocs/pubdocs/en/intproperty/450/wipo_pub_450.pdf (last accessed on 30 May 2020).

[ii] https://resources.infosecinstitute.com/intellectual-property-investigations/#gref (last accessed on 30 May 2020).

By

Ridhima Chadda