Guidance

Intellectual property rights in India

Guidance on how to protect and enforce your intellectual property rights when trading or conducting research in India

• From: Intellectual Property Office
• Published: 5 June 2014
• Last updated: 25 July 2017 — See all updates

This publication was withdrawn on 8 August 2022

Intellectual Property: IP attache India is now obsolete and has been withdrawn. Please see our International IP service for further information.

Documents

Intellectual property rights In India

PDF, 392 KB, 12 pages

Intellectual Property Management Toolkit for Indo-UK R&D Collaborations

MS Word Document, 13.1 MB

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Details

Protecting your Intellectual Property in India

India is a significant market for UK business, worth over £8bn each year. In terms of emerging markets, it is the UK’s second largest export market after China. You should consider how to manage or protect your intellectual property (IP) if you are thinking about:

• exporting to India
• manufacturing your products in India
• licensing your IP in India

India’s economy is one of the fastest growing in the world, with a rapidly expanding consumer class. The UK has strong ties with India, and UK companies are well positioned to take advantage of this growing export and investment market.

It’s important you choose the right form of IP protection for your product or service. The online IP Health Check from the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) can help you learn more about IP and your business.

Further information on each of the IP rights in India is available in the above guidance.

Seeking professional advice

The UK IPO has information on the different types of IP rights and what they protect. However, IP rights are protected differently in different countries. It is important to get the right advice on IP strategy and the different ways you can protect your IP so you can use the IP system to your advantage. If you are seeking to register your IP, or if your IP is infringed in India, we strongly advise you to seek advice from local IP lawyers to guide you through the processes.

Intellectual Property Management Toolkit for Indo-UK R&D Collaborations

This Toolkit (listed above) is intended to help UK and Indian research institutes or universities and businesses which wish to undertake collaborative research projects with each other, especially institutes/universities and small and medium sized enterprises that are inexperienced in technology transfer or knowledge sharing and do not have the resources to buy-in expensive expertise.

The objectives of the Toolkit are to:

• facilitate negotiations between potential collaborators
• reduce the time and effort required to secure agreement
• provide examples of good practice
• provide a useful starting point which can be adapted where necessary. The Toolkit cannot cover every issue arising from research collaboration to meet the needs of all parties

Published 5 June 2014
Last updated 25 July 2017 + show all updates

1. 25 July 2017

   Intellectual property rights in India PDF document updated.

2. 4 June 2015

   IP management toolkit added.

3. 26 May 2015

   New guidance added for each IP right.

4. 5 June 2014

   First published.