Home ›› 19 Oct 2022 ›› Editorial
Young people are fantastic creators and innovators. The 2022 World Intellectual Property (IP) Day’s theme was “IP and Youth: Innovating for a better future.” The idea is to create an awareness of various forms of IP, young inventors and creators can use their IP rights to achieve their goals, generate income, create jobs, and tackle local and global challenges and support community and national development (WIPO).
IP refers to expressed creations of the mind. IP may be divided into (i) Industrial Property and (ii) Copyright and Neighbouring Rights/ Related Rights. Some major forms of industrial property, some of which are: (1) Trade secrets, (2) Patents, (3) Geographical Indications, (4) Industrial designs, (5) Layout-designs of integrated circuits, (6) Trademarks etc. The five main types of intellectual property protections in Bangladesh are: trademark, patent, industrial design, copyright, and geographical indication.
Trade secrets: A trade secret is any information which has been kept secret, has commercial value, and retains its commercial value as a result of reasonable steps to keep the information secret. Trade secrets are protected without registration and the unauthorised disclosure of a trade secret may constitute an act of unfair competition as defined in the Bangladesh Competition Commission Act 2012.
In Bangladesh, the legal protection of trade secrets is scattered in different laws and protection need combined application of various laws. The protection of trade secrets is afforded through the exercise of Section 49 of the Patent and Designs Act, 1911, the Section 73 of the Contract Act, 1872 entitles a party to receive compensation for breaches of contractual obligations (Confidentiality Agreements and/Non-Disclosure Agreements are commonly used to protect confidential information).
Patents: A patent is an exclusive right granted for an invention, which is a product or a process that provides, in general, a new way of doing something, or offers a new technical solution to a problem. Patent law is the branch of intellectual property law that deals with new inventions. Traditional patents protect tangible scientific inventions, such as circuit boards, car engines, heating coils, or zippers. To get a patent, technical information about the invention must be disclosed to the public in a patent application.
A patent is a type of intellectual property that provides its owner or the inventor the legal right to exclude others from inventing, using, or selling the invention for 16 years on payment of the prescribed fees and such period of protection may be renewed. A patent is an exclusive right granted for an invention, which is a product or a process that provides, in general, a new way of doing something, or offers a new technical solution to a problem.
In Bangladesh, Patent and Design Rights are guided under the Patents and Designs Act of 1911 and the Patent and Design Rules of 1933. Under these laws, Department of Patents, Designs and Trademarks (DPDT) provides patent protection for 16 years.
Geographical Indications: A Geographical Indication (GI) is defined as “an indication which identifies a good as originating in the territory of a country, or a region or locality in that territory, where a given quality, reputation or other characteristic of the good is essentially attributable to its geographical origin”.
Bangladesh has enacted the Geographical Indication (Registration and Protection) Act 2013. the GI Act of 2013 states that GIs can be used to denote the origin of goods where the quality, reputation, or other characteristics of such goods is essentially attributable to the place of origin of the said goods. The right to use a protected GI belongs to producers in the geographical area defined, who comply with the specific conditions of production for the product. For example –Maslin, Jamdanee, Kalijira rice, Sadamati Fajlee mango and Hilsa fish etc are example of GI products in Bangladesh. These products are produce in specific location having unique characteristics.
GI registration allows customers and producers to create trust and confidence on the product’s authenticity and quality in internal or external markets. It helps create a reputation of the product, facilitating fairer prices and access to lager markets for the producers.
Protecting GIs will prevent consumers from being misled by third parties not authorized to use the GIs. In turn, this protection will grant legitimate producers the right to prevent the misappropriation of their valuable property.
Industrial designs: An industrial design (ID) constitutes the ornamental or aesthetic aspect of an article and must not be dictated solely or essentially by technical or functional considerations. The ID may consist of three dimensional features, such as the shape of an article such as bottle of Coca Cola bottle shape, or two dimensional features, such as patterns, lines or colour.
In Bangladesh, there is no separate law of Industrial design but ID protect under the Patents and Designs Act 1911 and Patents and Design Rules 1933. Initially a design registration certificate in Bangladesh is issued for term of 5 years and renewable for two (2) further consecutive periods.
An industrial design can be a two- or three-dimensional pattern used to produce a product, industrial commodity or handicraft. In principle, the owner of a registered industrial design or of a design patent has the right to prevent third parties from making, selling or importing articles bearing or embodying a design which is a copy, or substantially a copy, of the protected design, when such acts are undertaken for commercial purposes.
Layout-designs of integrated circuits: In modern technology, integrated circuits are essential elements for a wide range of electrical products, including articles of everyday use, such as watches, television sets, washing machines, and cars, as well as sophisticated computers, smart phones, and other digital devices. Developing innovative layout designs of integrated circuits is essential for the production of ever-smaller digital devices with more functions.
Layout designs (topographies) of integrated circuits are a three-dimensional arrangement of elements forming an integrated circuit intended for manufacturing. Integrated circuits – commonly known as “chips” or “micro-chips” – are the electronic circuits in which all the components (transistors, diodes and resistors) have been assembled in a certain order on the surface of a thin semiconductor material (usually silicon).
Many countries have law to protect the layout design. This Act does not apply in relation to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated or embodied in a layout design. Bangladesh not yet have any law to provide for the protection of layout designs of integrated circuits.
Trademarks: A trademark is a sign capable of distinguishing the goods or services of one enterprise from those of other enterprises. A trademark is a sign capable of distinguishing the goods or services of one trader from those of other traders. A trademark identifies the brand owner of a particular product or service. However, not all signs or logos qualify for trademark protection. Generally, logos and designs that are used as brand identities for representing businesses are protected as trademarks. As they are original artistic works that have an element of creativity, they are also protected as copyrights.
Trademarks can generally be categorized into one of four categories of distinctiveness, from most to least distinctive: coined, arbitrary, suggestive and descriptive. Words and designs that lack any distinctiveness fall into a fifth category, “generic,” and cannot function as trademarks. Bangladesh has the Trademark Act 2009.
The trademark owner can be an individual, business organization, or any legal entity. A trademark may be located on a package, a label, a voucher, or on the product itself.
Armed with this information, our youth should be unstoppable in their attempts to innovate for a better future. Innovation does not mean complexity or extravagance. Innovation starts with “an idea whose time has come.”
The theme of IP day 2022 reminded of the power of youths in driving positive change. The theme recognises how young people around the world are stepping up to the challenge of innovation. Through their energy, ingenuity, curiosity and creativity, they are helping steer a course towards a better future. World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the framer of the theme wants to encourage more young people to unleash the potential of their innovative ideas. They want to encourage them to start businesses and create things they are passionate about.
The writer is Non-Government Adviser, Bangladesh Competition Commission. He can be contacted at [email protected]
