COPY RIGHT OBJECTIVES

MODULE 3
What is copyright Act?

Copyright is a set of
exclusive rights granted to the
author or creator of an
original work, including the
right to copy, distribute and
adapt the work.
 Need of Copyright Act !!

 Right to be credited for the work.

 To determine who may adapt thework.

 Who may financially benefit from it.

What can be copyright?
 Literary Works
 Musical Works
 Dramatic Works
 Choreographic Work
 Pictorial, Graphic, and
 Sculptural Works
 Motion Pictures and AV
 Sound Recordings
 Architectural Works
 Computer work
 Work on the Web
 Business work
 Copyright is Automatic

There is no need to include a

copyright notice. (©, 2012).
However, it is a good idea to
do so due to ignorance.

The copyright is in force

when the work is “fixed”
which includes saving to disk
or writing it on paper.
 Indian Copyright Act

First Act in 1914, followed

by the Copyright Act 1957.

1957 Act: adopted many

English provisions, introduced
new ideas and concepts.
Copyright Act 1957 – Main Features
Valid from 21 January 1958
Created Copyright Office and Copyright Board
Introduced civil and criminal remedies against
infringement
 Definition of categories in which copyright
actually subsists
 International copyright
Case Highlights
Apple sued its component supplier Samsung, alleging in a
38-page federal complaint on April 15, 2011 in the
United States District Court for the Northern District of
California that several of Samsung's Android phones and
tablets, including the Nexus S, Epic 4G, Galaxy S 4G
and the Samsung Galaxy Tab, infringed on Apple’s
intellectual property: its patents, trademarks, user
interface and style.
Apple's complaint included specific federal
claims for patent infringement, false designation of
origin, unfair competition, and trademark infringement,
as well as state-level claims for unfair competition,
common law trademark infringement, and unjust
enrichment.
VERDICT
As a result of the combination of a
sophisticated jury that understood the nuances of
intellectual property law and abundant evidence of
copying by Samsung, Apple was awarded $1.049
billion in its patent infringement lawsuit on Aug.
24, 2012. The jury was apparently swayed by
evidence that Samsung had copied Apple’s iPhone
models that led to a jury verdict that six Apple
patents were found to be infringed.
Protection of IP rights for Mobile Apps
 Mobile Applications have made many
businesses go “on-the-fly”. Yet, the investments
involved are minimal, sometimes going as low as few
thousands. Is it worth protecting your mobile
application against replication; when the cost of
development is low and complete protection takes
much longer than development itself?
Patents: It has been a long due question, as to
whether mobile applications are patentable. Mobile
applications are nothing but software running on a
mobile hardware and interacting with various
servers. Each country has different criteria for
examining the patent applications based on computer
implemented inventions or software based inventions
In general, the mobile application and
technological ecosystem of the mobile application
is a subject matter for patentability. For example,
when a virtual keyboard was first introduced in
mobile phones, surely it was a patentable subject-
matter. There may be various front end elements of
mobile applications which can be novel, inventive
and may be out of the excluded subject-matter of
patenting. Also, the way the mobile application is
communicating with a server or another mobile
device may again be a subject-matter of patentability.
Software can be patented in combination with a
new hardware. This means that any invention has to
relate to novel software as well as novel hardware,
for it to be patentable.
In order to be patentable software must
have industrial application.
Trademarks: For marketing or other usage
purposes, a mobile application can have a name or an
artistic device (logo) or a combination of the two;
through which the mobile application is identified by
its consumer. It is quite important to mention that a
Trademark gains strength through its usage. Also,
with more usage it becomes more vulnerable to
duplication.
A trademark is an increasingly essential strategic
marketing and intellectual property asset to any
business. It is suggested that one must seek
protection for the “name” and “logo”
individually.But it also depends on the type of
application and sometimes expert advice is also
required..
Copyright: Another important form of protection for
mobile applications is copyright. Copyright allows
protection for creators of original work of authorship
for literary and artistic work. Computer codes and
presentation of various mobile screens during a
workflow of a mobile application are considered
as literary work and artistic work respectively.
Other aspects of mobile application which can be
considered artistic are movable images, music,
sound, video recordings, etc. of the mobile
application interface.
Mobile applications are part of a fast moving
technology, and these applications can be developed
at a very quick pace. Mobile technology may be
constantly changing but protecting these applications
will be very beneficial for the business in the long
run. In some cases, the mobile application is just a
part of the business, whereas in other cases the
business itself is the mobile application..
For example, Ola, a taxi/cab service provider has
disturbed the public transport industry through its
mobile application. Another example is Whatsapp, an
instant messaging application where the whole
business itself is the mobile application. Thus, one
should devise a suitable Intellectual Property
Protection strategy, to enjoy maximum benefits from
the mobile application without worrying about
competitors who may duplicate the mobile
application technology