Sound Board

Our thoughts and views on the practice of Intellectual Property in India and around the world.

It seems to have become a norm in India these days to rake up some controversy before a film’s release. It is almost always either intellectual property (copyright or trademark) violation or defamation. This time apparently it is both!

I just looked back on our posts and noticed that we have been bringing to you many posts about the changes in the Trademark, Patent and Designs Office but haven’t been giving due attention to the Copyright Office (not that much has happened in a while)

Yoga is one of the oldest physical and spiritual exercises known to mankind. It is collective knowledge and has been believed to be in existence from around 2500 B.C. Come to think of it, there should be no intellectual property battle over it – it is India’s traditional knowledge and no single entity or company should be allowed to monopolise any yoga asana or posture in the form of a patent or copyright, as the case may be. However, practically and legally, it isn’t this straight forward and…

A movie has different elements that make it what it is. You have the story line (which is understood through the dialogues and the script), the sound tracks that enhance the movie experience as a whole, the costumes and the choices of location, and of course the acting. Therefore, a great deal of effort from many different persons makes a good movie. The question that often arises is, does the movie as a whole receive intellectual protection or can its constituent parts also be protected? Who…

At the risk of over-simplifying things and shooting myself in the foot, copyright is the stream of intellectual property law that protects individual’s creative work. Take for example when you are enjoying a meal at a restaurant; if you were to stop and think about it, copyright exists in the music playing in the background, the menu, the recipe of the food on the table, the design on the table cloth, the photographs on the wall, the software on their system which calculates and prints out the…