Patent Protection Essay

Whether India need a Utility Model Patent Protection

Introduction

The term ‘utility’ means ‘the state of being useful, profitable, or beneficial’ . In the Intellectual Property context, the term is often connected with the patent protection and refer to a second tier patent protection offering a cheap, no-examination protection which would not usually fulfill the patentability criteria .There is no uniformity among countries on the Utility Patent protection; some offers protection to technical concepts or inventions or devices while other offers for other forms also. Further this protection is not offered in many of the world nations .

Theoretical Justification

The justification for seeking an additional protection under Intellectual Property

Even though structurally different, the common thread that we see in all the system is the attempt to capture the innovations those are left by the Patent law. Further, the reason for introduction of such a system of protection is also similar to that of Germany which is evident from the relevant literatures available.

China established its patent system in 1984 and at that time Chinese industries had extremely low technical innovative capacities and most of inventions are done by small and medium scale entities and the inventions were minor improvements on the preexisting technologies . So they very much felt the need for a legal protection to induce the local innovation in China. Chinese utility law protects new technical solution relating to shape, structure, combination of a product which is fit for practical use

Japan established the Utility Model law in 1905to protect the minor inventions. Contrast to the German model, it covered all commercial goods and also adopted an examination system which is absent in the German system and granted a longer term of protection than applied under German law . The definite reason for introduction of Utility model law was to protect minor inventions and encourage development of the domestic innovators. During those days Japan was lagging behind in technological development and the domestic inventors were not able to compete with the foreign applicants and substantial part of the patents were obtained by