Legal Guide Part 5 - Intellectual Property Protection for Indian Business

- Paragraph 1 - the IP map: Indian intellectual-property law spans five statutes - the Trade Marks Act 1999 (brand names, logos, taglines, sounds, shapes), the Copyright Act 1957 (literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, cinematograph film, sound recording, software), the Patents Act 1970 (inventions - process or product, with s.3 exclusions for software per se, business methods, mathematical methods), the Designs Act 2000 (two-dimensional or three-dimensional visual features of an article - shape, configuration, pattern, ornament), and the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act 1999 (goods originating in a defined territory - Darjeeling Tea, Channapatna Toys, Alphonso Mango). Each has its own register, its own form, its own fee schedule, its own term of protection, its own renewal cadence.