The Role of Intellectual Property Rights

Globalization has made the world a small global village by integration of the worldwide & across-the-board markets. It has given customer and users a wide choice of products and brands with lowered costs. However, this has also led to a delicate and harmful exposure of them to the various unfair practices adopted by the producers.

It is a generally recognized and appreciated fact in today’s era that the presence of a strong intellectual property right (IPR) regime is a significant precondition for the improvement and rise of the economic growth in the country. It facilitates greater investment into research and development as well as provides means to improve the quality of life of people of the nation. IPR not only protects and promoted ventures in the innovative and creative capacity of competitors and owners of IP rights that supply goods and services, but it also concerns itself with the interests of the consumers of those goods and services, directly or indirectly. The existence of such rights proves vital and is necessary for overall development of society.

The areas of intellectual property that are most relevant for consumer protection are: Trade Marks, Geographical Indications and Protection against unfair competition. These IP rights help the consumers in buying quality products and protect them from use of substandard products which may cause health and safety hazards. Thus, the proper operation & execution of IP rights and their enforcement is very important for consumers. Further, it is the core basis that people of the country must be protected from unfair competition, that is, from any act of dishonest practice in trade and business.

Protection against unfair competition has been recognized as one of the main objectives of intellectual property system, which prohibits any act of competition that is contrary to honest practices in industrial or commercial matters, referred to as ‘unfair competition’. The acts of unfair competition not only adversely affect the competitors, which tend to lose their customers and market share; but also affect consumers as they are likely to be misinformed and misled and tend to suffer economic and personal prejudice. Whatever form unfair competition may take, it is in the interest of the honest and legitimate entrepreneur, the consumer and the public at large that they should be prevented and protected from it as early and as effectively as possible.

Free and fair competition between enterprises is considered to be the best means of satisfying supply and demand in the economy as well as of serving the interests of consumers and economy as a whole. This accelerates and paves for a path of innovation and productivity and leads to the optimum allocation of resources in the economy; reduces costs and improves quality; as well as accelerates economic growth and development, hence an attempts to undertake a study of the above interfaces between IPR and Consumer Protection sector in India.