International-Business-Dr-R-Chandran-E-book

183
International Business- Dr. R. Chandran
However, it may become necessary or advisable to join forces with other
parties to exploit the protected area of business. This is permitted under
intellectual property rights if the other parties, the licenses, pay a lump sum
or royalties to the primary party. Thus if there is a big market, which a
single party cannot, or does not wish to exploit alone, one or more licenses
can be appointed who can also take advantage of the market and the main
party will receive royalties on their income.
Alternatively, it may be desirable for the party to simply sell the
intellectual property rights at an appropriate price. This is possible since the
rights can be assigned (ownership transferred) to other parties. Suppose a
party develops a product in an area in which it has no commercial interest,
then the party may consider selling that invention to another party who
operates in that area, as an alternative to licensing the party to exploit the
invention.
Intellectual property rights can thus be used to avoid competition or to
derive an income through licensing of selling the rights.
The existence of intellectual property rights also provides a useful tool
for monitoring the activities of competitors. Published patent application,
registered designs and applications for registration of a trademark can
indicate the technical and commercial direction a competitor is taking, or
thinking of taking. For example, published patent applications contain
technical information relating to inventions and can indicate the area of
technology that is currently of interest to the applicant or proprietor. An
application for a new trademark may indicate a new line of business or
change of corporate identity for a company.
All this material is available for public inspection and can be a valuable
source of commercial information as it is unavailable elsewhere.
THE PROCEDURE TO OBTAIN IPR PROTECTION
Intellectual property rights can be obtained in one of two ways, by
application or by automatic derivation. Where an application procedure is
involved, it usually follows the steps set out in the following sequence:
1. File application
2. Search carried out to ascertain originality
3. Examination carried out
Only for Private Circulation