Career Opportunities for Law Graduates in Intellectual Property Law

 Introduction

Intellectual Property Law (IP) is an exponentially growing field. We are witnessing a paradigm shift from corporations and companies hunting down tangible properties such as land and machinery towards acquiring intellectual assets. India is becoming a hub of start-ups and R&D centres, which are nothing but intellectual creations. Intellectual Property law is all about protecting and exercising benefits from your intellectual creations. People protect what they create. It is a basic human tendency for which they need another set of people. Now that might be you, aspiring to build a career in IPR because clearly, Google directed you here when you asked it for some career advice.

Why is Intellectual Property law interesting?

Intellectual property (IP) refers to creations of the mind, such as inventions; literary and artistic works; designs; and symbols, names and images used in commerce. Intellectual property law enables individuals to claim exclusive rights and financial gain from what they invent or create, which is a benefit to both creators and the public. With its foundation in human ingenuity, it should be no surprise that for the intellectual property professional, work days cannot be characterized as dull or boring. To state that another way, intellectual property law is unendingly interesting, especially when genius mixes with mortal unpredictability.

Let us look at some interesting cases

S. Victor Whitmill v. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc

In the movie, The Hangover Part II, Stu Price played by Ed Helms wakes up with a tribal tattoo which is identical to the one Mike Tyson has. Tyson’s tattoo artist Mr Whitmill filed a lawsuit against Warner Bros. Entertainment for copyright infringement just weeks before the release of the movie. Warner Bros. Entertainment, however, saw it as parody falling under ‘fair use’. The injunction order was not granted as the studio was ready to alter the tattoo digitally. Further, to avoid a long trial, Whitmill and Warner Bros. Entertainment settled with an agreement under undisclosed terms.  

Amazon’s 1 – Click Patent

On September 28 1999, Amazon was granted a patent for the ‘1-click technology’. It is a one-click buying technology where customers can do an online purchase in a single click. There have been various disputes regarding this technology which stores all the necessary details in the user’s account online and enables them to make quick purchases. Amazon also filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Barnes & Noble in 1999. Barnes & Noble also used a similar technology under the name of “Express Lane” which also enabled shoppers to make a purchase with one click. The lawsuit was settled in 2002, however, the terms were not disclosed.

Adidas America v. Payless ShoeSource

We identify the Adidas shoes by their three strips, but Adidas is not the only shoe making company that uses stripes. In 1994, Adidas and Payless Shoesource got into a scuffle over these stripes. Payless was selling confusingly similar athletic shoes with two and four parallel stripes. The two companies hashed out a settlement, but by 2001, Payless was again selling confusingly similar shoes. Fearing that the sneakers would dupe buyers and tarnish its name, Adidas America Inc. demanded a jury trial. The trial lasted seven years, during which 268 pairs of Payless shoes were reviewed. In the end, Adidas was awarded $305 million—$100 million for each stripe.

The stories of intellectual property law are infinitely dynamic, surprising, amazing and curious. And as technology, human creativity and law develop and intersect, new problems with new questions arise.

Diverse Work Profile

There is a high probability that you are reading this as a law student who is ready to step into the world of IPR as a lawyer, so let us have a look at the different possible roles that people in this field play: 

• Drafting (here, understanding the invention, strategizing protection, articulating the inventions and understanding nuances of language is very important) 
  
•  Litigation
• Filing & Prosecution 
• Teaching, training and spreading awareness
•  Analytics and Strategy 
•  Technology assessment and marketing
• Research, policy, philosophy and advocacy

The list is not exhaustive. The idea is to make clear that a single individual takes more than one of these roles up in the Indian paradigm because role specialization is rare, unlike the western countries. These roles might narrow down if you end up in an IPR specializing firm, where only specific roles are provided, but if you step into litigation, you clearly have a dynamic and broad field of practice.

Intellectual Property Law

 Understanding the law and its implications should be your primary objective no matter what role in this field you consider yourself fit for. In addition, a good communication skill is necessary as IPR is widely interdisciplinary. 

 There is marketing involved, dealing with different communities in understanding the inventions, etc

Different roles require different strengths. For instance, a little knowledge in science and technology is required when dealing with patents. Owing to the fact that IPR is multidisciplinary and a bit of studying technology is involved for patents which subsequently is an important part of the IPR, students go technology phobic.

A bit of research on this angle of technology tells us that there are lawyers who thrive upon flourishing practices even without having a formal technical degree, which is a requirement under the Patents Act, which is further debatable as to how a technical degree in any field makes one competent for a Patent Agent. Moreover, this is not taken well by the lawyer community.

Fields under IP Law

Lord Walker in the case of Philips v Malcurie declared that the term ‘intellectual property’ has no particular potency.  A consensus is there as to its core content but not as to its limits. Broadly classified under:

•    Trade Marks

• Patents

•  Copyrights and Related Rights

•    Industrial Designs

•     Geographical Indications

•    Layout Designs of Integrated Circuits

•   Plant Varieties

•   Information Technology and Cyber crimes

•    Data Protection

These fields are governed by various stipulated Acts such as

1. Trade Marks Act, 1999
2. The Patents Act, 1970 (as amended in 2005)
3. The Copyright Act, 1957
4. The Designs Act, 2000
5. The Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999
6. The Semiconductor Integrated Circuits Layout Design Act, 2000
7. The Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Right Act, 2001
8. The Information Technology Act, 2000

 

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