The Spectrum of Intangible Property Rights: From Copyrights to Trademarks

When you write a novel, compose a piece of music, or invent a new product, you create something that exists purely in the realm of ideas – yet it holds immense economic and personal value. This is the domain of intangible property rights, a category of legal rights that protects creations of the human mind rather than physical objects. Unlike a house or a car, intangible property cannot be touched, but it can be owned, licensed, transferred, and protected under law. In India, a robust framework of statutes governs these rights, and understanding them is foundational to any serious study of property law and intellectual property.

What are intangible property rights? 🔗

Intangible property refers to assets that have no physical form but carry legal and commercial value. Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) are the legal rights associated with such intangible property – owned by a person or entity and protected against use without their consent. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights itself recognises this through Article 27, which protects the moral and material interests of authors arising from their scientific, literary, or artistic productions. In India, the legal architecture for these rights spans several statutes administered by the Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks (CGPDTM) under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

Broadly, intangible property rights in the IP context cover four major categories: patents, copyrights, artistic copyrights, and trademarks. Each protects a distinct kind of creation and operates under its own statute with specific requirements, durations, and remedies.

Patents: protecting inventions 🔗

A patent is a monopoly right granted to an inventor over a new invention for a limited period. It prevents anyone else from making, using, selling, or importing the patented product or process without the patent holder’s consent. In India, patents are governed by the Patents Act, 1970, which came into force on 20 April 1972 and has since been amended in 1999, 2002, and 2005 to bring Indian law in line with the WTO’s TRIPS Agreement.

Requirements for patentability 🔗

Not every invention qualifies for a patent. Three fundamental criteria must be met: the invention must be novel (new and not previously disclosed), non-obvious (not an obvious modification to a person skilled in the field), and must have industrial applicability (a practical use). Importantly, certain categories are expressly excluded from patentability under Indian law – these include agricultural and horticultural methods, mathematical or business methods, and mere discoveries of known substances, among others.

Duration and rights 🔗

A patent is granted for a term of 20 years from the date of filing the application. During this period, the patent holder can exploit the invention commercially, license it to others in exchange for royalties, or assign it entirely. Once the term expires, the invention enters the public domain. This time-limited monopoly is a deliberate legal balance – it rewards inventors while eventually making knowledge freely available to society.

Copyright: protecting original expression 🔗

Copyright is the intangible property right that protects original literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works. It is governed in India by the Copyright Act, 1957, the country’s first post-independence copyright legislation, which has been amended six times – most significantly in 2012. Copyright does not protect an idea itself, but only its expression. So the plot concept behind a novel is not protected, but the specific words the author uses to express it are.

What does copyright cover? 🔗

Under the Copyright Act, the term “work” includes literary works (novels, poems, computer programs, compilations), dramatic works, musical works, artistic works, cinematographic films, and sound recordings. Copyright arises automatically upon the creation of an original work – registration is not mandatory, though it is strongly recommended as it provides prima facie evidence of ownership in case of a dispute.

Duration of copyright 🔗

For most works, copyright subsists for the lifetime of the author plus 60 years from the beginning of the calendar year following the author’s death. For anonymous or pseudonymous works, and for government works, the duration is calculated differently but the 60-year post-publication benchmark broadly applies.

Economic rights of the copyright holder 🔗

The copyright owner holds a bundle of economic rights under Section 14 of the Act. These include the exclusive right to reproduce the work, issue copies to the public, perform or communicate it publicly, make translations or adaptations, and make films or sound recordings from it. These rights can be assigned or licensed to third parties – a publisher, a film studio, a streaming platform – enabling creators to earn from their work commercially.

Artistic copyright and moral rights: a distinct dimension 🔗

Within the broader framework of copyright, artistic works receive specific attention. Under the Copyright Act, 1957, “artistic work” covers paintings, sculptures, drawings (including maps and charts), engravings, photographs, works of architecture, and works of artistic craftsmanship. The protection afforded to these works extends not just to their commercial exploitation, but also to the personal and reputational interests of their creators through what are called moral rights.

Moral rights under Section 57 🔗

Section 57 of the Copyright Act, 1957 confers special rights on authors that exist independently of their economic rights – and crucially, even after the copyright has been fully assigned to another person. These rights are rooted in India’s commitments under the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, specifically Article 6bis.

Two key moral rights flow from Section 57:

Right of Paternity – the right to claim authorship of the work. This ensures that the creator is always acknowledged as the original author, protecting their personal connection to and reputation associated with the creation.

Right of Integrity – the right to object to any distortion, mutilation, modification, or other act in relation to the work that would be prejudicial to the author’s honour or reputation. Importantly, the 2012 amendment to the Copyright Act removed the earlier time limit on moral rights, meaning authors or their heirs can exercise these rights even after the copyright term has expired.

Landmark cases on moral rights 🔗

Indian courts have grappled extensively with the scope of moral rights. In the landmark Amarnath Sehgal v. Union of India case, the Delhi High Court held that the destruction of a mural constituted a violation of the artist’s moral rights under Section 57, ruling that destruction is the most extreme form of mutilation and prejudicially affects the author’s reputation. The court awarded compensation of ₹5 lakhs to the artist. A contrasting view emerged in Raj Rewal v. Union of India, where the same court held that an architect’s moral rights could not override the property owner’s constitutional right to property under Article 300A of the Constitution – demonstrating that moral rights, while significant, are not absolute.

Trademarks: protecting brand identity 🔗

A trademark is the intangible property right that protects signs, symbols, words, logos, or combinations used to distinguish the goods or services of one business from those of others. In India, trademarks are governed by the Trade Marks Act, 1999. Section 2(zb) of the Act defines a trademark as a mark capable of being represented graphically and of distinguishing the goods or services of one person from those of others – it may include the shape of goods, their packaging, and combinations of colours.

What can be registered as a trademark? 🔗

The scope of what constitutes a trademark is broad. It can be a single letter, a word, a logo, a numeral, a device, a label, a sound, a colour combination, or even the three-dimensional shape of packaging. Service marks – trademarks used specifically in connection with services like banking or tourism – are also registrable. There are 45 classes of trademarks under Indian law, consisting of 34 product classes and 11 service classes, following the international Nice Classification system.

Duration, registration, and rights 🔗

A trademark registration is valid for an initial period of 10 years and can be renewed perpetually for successive periods of 10 years, making it potentially the longest-lasting of all IP rights. Registration is administered by the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks, and while not strictly mandatory (common law rights based on prior use also exist), registration provides significant advantages – it is prima facie evidence of validity and gives the registered holder the exclusive right to use the mark and seek statutory remedies for infringement. The registered proprietor can also transfer rights through licence or assignment.

The distinctiveness requirement 🔗

The cornerstone of trademark law is distinctiveness. A mark must be capable of distinguishing the source of goods or services. Generic or descriptive terms cannot ordinarily be registered as trademarks. This requirement ensures that competitors remain free to use common language, while distinctive marks – whether inherently distinctive or ones that have acquired distinctiveness through use – receive the full protection of the law.

The broader landscape: geographical indications, designs, and plant varieties 🔗

While patents, copyrights, and trademarks form the core of intangible property rights, Indian law recognises additional categories. Geographical Indications (GIs) protect names or signs associated with products from a specific geographic origin – such as Darjeeling Tea or Kanchipuram Silk – where the quality, reputation, or characteristic is linked to that origin. Industrial designs protect the ornamental or aesthetic aspects of a product. The Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Act, 2001 creates a sui generis system for plant breeders and farmers. Together, these categories – patents, designs, trademarks, copyrights, geographical indications, and semiconductor integrated circuit layout designs – form India’s complete IP portfolio under the DPIIT.

Why intangible property rights matter 🔗

The legal protection of intangible property rights serves purposes far beyond individual interests. It incentivises innovation by guaranteeing inventors and creators a period of exclusive benefit from their efforts. It fuels cultural production by ensuring authors and artists can make a livelihood from their work. It builds market trust by allowing consumers to rely on trademarks as reliable signals of quality and origin. And it fulfils India’s international obligations under treaties like TRIPS, the Berne Convention, and the Paris Convention – frameworks that collectively ensure a minimum standard of IP protection across WTO member states.

At their core, intangible property rights reflect a fundamental legal principle: that the products of the mind deserve the same recognition and protection as physical assets. A novelist’s manuscript, a pharmaceutical company’s patent, a startup’s logo, and a sculptor’s mural are all property – just of a different, intangible kind.

What do you think? If moral rights under Section 57 persist even after an author assigns their copyright, how should courts balance an author’s right of integrity against a property owner’s constitutional right to use their land as they see fit? And given that trademark rights can theoretically last forever through renewal while patents expire in 20 years, does the law strike the right balance in protecting different kinds of creative and inventive effort?

References

1. https://blog.ipleaders.in/all-about-intellectual-property-rights-ipr/
2. https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/universal-declaration-human-rights
3. https://ipindia.gov.in/
4. https://ipindia.gov.in/patents.htm
5. https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/trips_e.htm
6. https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=7045cf52-4a2c-465f-980b-b5af034e2064
7. https://www.copyright.gov.in/Documents/Copyrightrules1957.pdf
8. https://acuitylaw.co.in/faqs/intellectual-property-laws-in-india/
9. https://ssrana.in/articles/protection-moral-right-author/
10. https://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/
11. https://www.onlinelegalindia.com/blogs/copyright-act-1957/
12. https://irglobal.com/article/moral-rights-under-copyright-law/
13. https://ipindia.gov.in/trade-marks.htm
14. https://www.trade.gov/country-commercial-guides/india-protecting-intellectual-property