Claiming Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) over a subject matter as debatable as life forms has created diverse opinions since the day such a claim application was first made. It is very important to assess the same, morally, ethically, and legally, in the light of accepted norms laid by the Patent Laws in different major jurisdictions. A life […]
Read MoreWhat is Inequitable Conduct? Obtaining a patent is an uphill battle. Even after a patent is secured, it is not the end of all battles. There are instances where a patent holder may be deterred from enforcing his patent against an act of infringement on account of equitable defenses like unclean hands, estoppel, or laches. […]
Read MoreToday, several generic terms that we use, such as ‘escalator,’ ‘xerox,’ ‘cellophane,’ sound common but were once protected as trademarks. How have then they become generic terms? In the Trademark Law context, genericide, or the conversion of a trademark into a generic phrase, occurs when a trademark becomes the generic word for the product or […]
Read MoreWhat is an Application Programming Interface? An Application Programming Interface (API) is an electrical socket of a modern software system. To draw a simple parallel, in the manner that every electrical device utilizes a certain type of plug that easily fits every other outlet of the corresponding type, an API allows different software made by […]
Read MoreEvergreening is any of the various legal, business, and technological ways using which manufacturers extend the lifetime of their patents that are about to expire to retain royalties from them by either taking out new patents (for example, over related delivery systems or new pharmaceutical mixtures) or buying out or frustrating competitors for a longer […]
Read MoreFor easing the mode of filing a patent and claiming the subject matter contained therein, there are two basic approaches, namely provisional patent application and complete patent application. It is a crucial choice to opt for the filing of a provisional patent application or not since a provisional patent application is optional while a complete […]
Read MoreThe doctrine stipulates that the scope of a patent is not confined to the literal terms laid in the claims; instead, it embraces all the equivalents to the claims described in the said application. In the absence of such a doctrine, the true essence of the patent and the monopolistic rights would never be realized […]
Read MoreWhen we talk about safeguarding some specific piece of information that adds to the commercial value of the goods, two obvious options come to our minds. The first is trade secrets, and the second is patents. The choice between the two options widely depends on the type of enterprise, the nature of operations undertaken by […]
Read MoreWhat is Big Data? Big data is a relatively new concept that has created a greater conundrum in the realm of Intellectual Property (IP) laws. Big data refers to the large and diverse sets of information that can grow at an ever-increasing rate. Such collection of massive structured, unstructured, and multi-structured data is due to […]
Read MoreWith the advancement of technology and the overreaching effect of cyberspace, cyber crimes have also witnessed a surge. Of these crimes, Intellectual Property (IP) theft is one of the many, which involves stealing copyright, patents, industrial designs, etc., by using the internet and computers as a medium. Copyright and trade secrets like software, secret formula/recipes, […]
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