Law

Intellectual Property
Introduction to Intellectual Property: A
Conceptual Primer

Development Team
Role Name Affiliation

Principal Investigator Professor (Dr.) Ranbir Singh Vice Chancellor, National

Law University, Delhi
Paper Coordinator Mr. Yogesh Pai Assistant Professor of
Law, National Law
University, Delhi
Content Writer (CW) Mr. Yogesh Pai Assistant Professor of
Law, National Law
University, Delhi
Content Reviewer (CR) Mr. Pratyush Kumar National Law University,
Delhi
 Module Detail
Subject name Law

Paper name Intellectual Property

Module name/ Title Introduction to Intellectual Property: A Conceptual Primer

Module Id Law/IP/#01

Pre- requisites  NA

Objectives  To provide an overview of the concept of intellectual

property protection
 To understand the nature of IP rights
 To provide an overview of the course
Key words Intellectual property, concepts, nature of, overview of

1. Introduction:
Intellectual Property (IP) has emerged as an important discipline in the study of
economic laws. There are several theories underlying the relevance of IP law in
modern industrial societies driven by private investments in innovation and
entrepreneurship. However, one unifying factor is that IP protects and
encourages differentiation. Differentiation allows markets to solve new
problems or old problems in a new way. The legal protection of IP is rooted in
the philosophy to property rights as one of most efficient instrument (having
partial basis in natural law or statute-based) in production and consumption of
goods and services. Intellectual property is essentially driven by rights and
remedies based system that aligns with traditional notions of property to a large
extent, but has turned into a malleable tool which is influenced by nature of
technology, temporality, territoriality, and most importantly, public policy. While
there is no single definition of IP, the World Intellectual Property Organisation
constructs it as “the legal rights which result from intellectual activity in the
industrial, scientific, literary and artistic fields.”1

It is interesting to note that while there is no singular definition of IP to include

all its attributes, the Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property
Organization (WIPO), concluded in Stockholm on July 14, 1967 (Article 2(viii))
provides that “intellectual property shall include rights relating to: - literary,
artistic and scientific works, - performances of performing artists, phonograms
and broadcasts, - inventions in all fields of human endeavor, - scientific
discoveries, - industrial designs, - trademarks, service marks and commercial
names and designations, - protection against unfair competition, and all other

1
http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/about-ip/en/iprm/pdf/ch1.pdf

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 rights resulting from intellectual activity in the industrial, scientific, literary or
artistic fields.”2

Historically, intellectual property was not a term that was widely in currency. IP
as we now understand was divided into industrial property and copyright.
Industrial property was understood (as per Paris Convention) to include patents,
industrial designs trademarks, service marks, commercial names and
designations, including indications of source and appellations of origin, and
protection against unfair competition. Copyright largely includes literary and
artistic work.
Intellectual property is recently coined. Prof. Mark Lemley noted that
widespread use of the term “intellectual property” is a fad that followed the
1967 founding of the World “Intellectual Property” Organization (WIPO), and
became much more common in recent years.

As per the WIPO IP can be justified for two reasons

“One is to give statutory expression to the moral and economic rights of creators
in their creations and the rights of the public in access to those creations. The
second is to promote, as a deliberate act of Government policy, creativity and the
dissemination and application of its results and to encourage fair trading which
would contribute to economic and social development.”3
This module discusses the following aspects in introducing concepts involving
IPRs:
 Property and Intellectual Property and differences
 Basic intellectual property concepts
 Classification of intellectual property rights (IPRs)
 Explanation on each of the categories of intellectual property
 Difference between real/ tangible property and intangible intellectual
property?
 Structure of the course

Learning Outcome:
 To provide an overview of the concept of intellectual property protection
 To understand the nature of IP rights
 To provide an overview of the course

2
http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/text.jsp?file_id=283854
3
http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/about-ip/en/iprm/pdf/ch1.pdf

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 2. Property and Intellectual Property and differences
Property sanctifies ownership and possession as its essential attributes by
allowing the right to exclude and right to alienate as the primary and secondary
core among the bundle of rights. Property rights provide the right of exclusion in
rem. They operate against the world.

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Point to Remember

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Self-check Exercises

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