IP enforcement

Rahul Chaudhry, a partner at Lall Lahiri & Salhotra, identifies the key steps in fighting patent and trademark violations

If IP is to retain its value, it is important to ensure that the legal rights associated with it are enforced and attempts at infringing it are thwarted.

The successful protection of IP rights entails, first and foremost, an understanding of a company‘s IP portfolio and recognition of a business’ driving force. For example, a technology-intensive business may rely on patented technologies and so all other forms of IP must then be leveraged to ensure the optimization of this technology. On the other hand, a consumer product company may rely primarily on the strength of its trade mark. Understanding this is essential not just for the enforcement of a company‘s IP rights, but also useful in establishing the costs associated with the IP and the benefits it brings.

Next, businesses must have a mechanism in place to ensure that they are aware of every violation of their IP rights and can take immediate action against infringements. For this, a business needs to have protocols in place that may be activated when various instances of abuse occur. These include three protocols to deal with: (1) actual instances of IP misuse; (2) attempts to register either a trade mark or patent that is identical to that owned by the business; and (3) incorrect registration of a trade mark or patent.

Rahul Chaudhry is a partner at Lall Lahiri & Salhotra in Gurgaon.