Several decades ago, the richest men in the world were the owners of oil fields which generally did not mean that they had worked hard for it, but they had inherited from their ancestors. Fortunately, the richest people in the world today i.e., the founders of all the top companies such as Amazon, Tesla, SpaceX, Facebook, Microsoft etc. all became successful because they had a unique idea and they didn’t just implement it but they continuously developed and improved it through expansion and diversification and they were all able to do it through intellectual property.
Mark Getty once said “Intellectual property is the oil of the 21st century. Look at the richest men a hundred years ago; they all made their money extracting natural resources or moving them around.” All companies that are household names started as an idea of the founder and as a start-up with a maximum of half a dozen employees that burned the midnight oil and made their dreams a reality through registering their ideas as a trademark. This doesn’t just mean that the one in a million idea is the only thing that can be registered as intellectual property.
Intellectual property simply put is registering any work product created that is an original work of the creator can claim it as his intellectual property. A person creating a tweet and posting it on Twitter, or even shooting a video and later uploading it on Twitter can also be registered as intellectual property as it is an original work.
To quote an example, a school in Hyderabad called the Montessori school has filed for five patents for inventions in drones designed by its young students to tackle new-age challenges faced by society. This is the perfect illustration as this portrays that intellectual property isn’t just for people with jobs or company products but can be implemented even by a school student.
Intellectual Property encourages all young innovators and sets a benchmark in the country, which is also the aim of the new National Education Policy. It gives special focus on creating innovation zones encouraging children to use their creative thinking and innovative approach in creating meaningful outcomes through skill-based and experiential learning. It should be believed that every child is capable of having a patent in his or her name, before leaving school if they have the idea that is completely original and worth registering as intellectual property.
All these illustrations may make it seem that intellectual property is just used for the field of the digital industry or electronic devices, but the following example of a gifted Indian student with humble beginnings shows that intellectual property is for everyone and everything.
A Grade 7 pupil of KIIT International School, Ayushman Nayak, is one such brilliant pupil who has earned a patent for his innovation. Ayushman has obtained a patent for his concept “System for Using Recycled Soap Water in Washing Machine and Method” from the Intellectual Property, Government of India. Ayushman’s concept become primarily based totally on growing a washing machine in which the cleaning soap water will undergo 5 layers of filtration after which may be saved to reuse. He had developed this concept when he was in the 3rd standard and had obtained the APJ Abdul Kalam Ignite Award in the year 2017 organised via National Innovation Foundation India.
This idea for the product was thought of by him in the 3rd standard when he was just 8 years old. This signifies that there is no age requirement nor a product classification for any idea to be registered as intellectual property. And by implementing this patent, not only has the student won reputable awards and gained media attention, but also gained invaluable career boost at such a tender age which shows his true potential when he does start his career and sets him up for life.
Intellectual property has to turn out to be a completely critical part of many agencies and industries in advanced countries. Intellectual property may be very critical and all international locations ought to have legal guidelines to guard intellectual property. All international locations ought to duly realise the intellectual homes in their individuals. We ought to apprehend that intellectual property no matter being intangible may be very critical. Economists all over the international have agreed that intellectual property provides massive prices to subjects. As the idea of intellectual property has grown so has the complaint around it grown. People consider that the ideas of intellectual property and its safety handiest create confusions and headaches in alternate and its miles hardly ever beneficial at all. With the twenty-first century knocking on our doors, intellectual property safety has to turn out to be very critical as there are numerous methods now that one could have his intellectual property misused and abused. With the improvement of the net and its significant utilization all during the international, crimes associated with misuse of intellectual property have grown. Articles, portions of artwork like films and songs which can be copyrighted to guard the rights in their manufacturers are being brazenly misused at the net via piracy.
Author:
Utkarsh Jain : Symbiosis Law School, Noida -Research Scholar for IPTSE Academy