How India protects inventions, brands, creative works — and its own regional specialities.
Patents protect inventions (typically for 20 years), governed by the Patents Act, 1970 (amended in 2005 to comply with TRIPS, introducing product patents for pharmaceuticals). Copyrights protect original literary, artistic, musical and dramatic works. Trademarks protect brand names, logos and symbols. Geographical Indications (GI), under the GI Act, 1999, protect products originating from a specific geographic region with qualities attributable to that origin.
The TRIPS Agreement (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights), administered by the WTO, sets minimum standards for IP protection among member countries. India's 2005 Patents Act amendment — enabling product patents in pharmaceuticals — was a direct TRIPS compliance step, though India retained Section 3(d), which restricts patents on mere new forms of known substances without enhanced efficacy (notably tested in the Novartis-Glivec case, 2013).
India has registered several hundred GI products, ranging from Darjeeling Tea (India's first GI tag, 2004-05) to Banarasi Sarees, Mysore Silk, and Tirupati Laddu — protecting both the economic interests of local producers and traditional cultural knowledge.
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