Overlap of Trademarks with Other Intellectual Property Rights: The Strategies of Global Brands

Abstract

Intellectual property protection is granted through law for the creators of the intellectual creations. Many may confine to one specific intellectual property protection for their creations when in fact to sustain the competitive market edge it is necessary to overlap the IP protections. Patent, Copyright, Industrial Design, Traditional knowledge, Trademarks can often overlap when a business carries out its activities in a market. The value of the intellectual property increases by its efficient management in a business from generating revenue through utilization of different protections offered by law. From providing valuable function to utilization of IP in the market, the process has become more personalized than addressing the consumer’s needs. It is also to be noted that not all commercially valuable ideas can be patented, but with the help of other IP protection, it can claim a protection similar to patents. Whether such overlapping use of IP leads to ever-greening of life of a product or it is just a recycling process is discussed in this paper in correlation with various case laws and current business management study of IP, where overlap of Trademark with other IP rights has been helpful in sustaining and enhancing the competitiveness.