INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND ITS CONNECTION WITH CYBERCRIMES

 

By:- Jaya

BALLB 2nd Year

Bharati Vidyapeeth (Deemed to be University)

New Law College

Pune, Maharashtra.

  What is an Intellectual Property?

Intellectual property simply means art or thought of mind which includes new creation, learning, invention, or any kind of discovery by the mankind.

There are 2 kinds of property named as Physical property and Intellectual property. Physical property includes the movable as well as the immovable property like house, building, jewellery whereas Intellectual property includes any idea, design or thought of human folk.

Intellectual Property rights include rights given to the person to safeguard their intellectual property that is right to keep their ideas, thoughts, design, discovery protected from being inefficiently used by others for their own benefit. This right given to us are of various types which include Trademark, Copyright, Patent.

The intellectual property law owes its origin during the 17^th and 18^th Century in England. However not before the 20^th Century it got popularity and got acknowledged in many of the country’s legal system.

Tangible properties including movable and immovable goods have already been accepted under the purview of property from very long and is guaranteed protection under Transfer of Property Act, 1982. But the Intangible goods which includes the discoveries, innovation etc. was recognized as property in the recent past and is guaranteed protection under the Intellectual Property Rights.

For example:  Pencil is manufactured by different companies. So, talking about Natraj specifically which is protected by the Intellectual Property Right which includes its design, color, logo, brand name, size, structure, and many more in order to curb other companies for earning profit in name of Natraj by simply copying these features.

 

          How is cybercrime interlinked with Intellectual Property?

Cybercrime simply comprises of wrongful acts or crime done with the aid of technology which includes Hacking, Cyber Stalking, Cyber Bullying, Online Theft and many more.

Intellectual property simply means art or thought of mind which includes new creation, learning, invention, or any kind of discovery by the mankind.

The advent of Internet brought a lot of boons as well as banes with itself. As a boon it led for economy’s upliftment but as a bane it paved way for many crimes including Cyber crime as the most practiced one. The frequent use of internet led to cyber theft even of the Intellectual properties which includes stealing of patents, trade secrets or copyright, designs, inventions, ideas of people.

It is significantly done to incur losses by the opponent companies. Previously cyber theft was done by spending a lot of money, labor, time, efficiency but now it’s done very easily without any monetary or time loss. Even its harder to find proofs of theft in the recent times due to advancement of technologies.

In recent times piracy is the major source of theft in India which leads to a large monetary loss to the copyright holder as piracy of movies, software’s, books, music’s are at peak.

Certain ways which could guarantee protection to these Intellectual properties from getting stolen are:

1)     Limiting the count of people from retrieving the property.

2)     By expanding more safety to the goods.

3)     By quick registration for getting the Intellectual Property Protection.

4)     By creating awareness among the people about what is cybercrime and its consequences.

Following these steps might bring a pause from cyber theft for a short span of time but can’t bring a permanent pause to it as day by day human’s dependency on internet is increasing and they are coming up with way new techniques to achieve even smaller goals.