Intellectual Property Rights

A patent gives you the right to stop someone else from making, using, or selling your invention - for up to 20 years, under the Patents Act, 1970. Miss that filing window and the protection is effectively gone, no matter how original the idea was.

Copyright protects original creative work the moment you make it - including software - under the Copyright Act, 1957. No registration is required for that protection to exist, but if someone copies your code, registration is what makes enforcing your rights in court far less painful.

A design registration protects the way a product looks - its shape, pattern, or ornamentation - for up to 10 years, under the Designs Act, 2000. It's easy to underestimate how much of a brand's identity sits in that visual signature until a near-identical knockoff shows up on the same shelf.

A trademark - logo, name, slogan, or packaging - is the one thing a customer actually recognizes about your business. The Trade Marks Act, 1999 gives you the exclusive right to that mark once it's registered, and the right to stop anyone using something confusingly similar.