IPR Advisory

Our IPR advisory practice helps businesses build, protect, and monetise intellectual property across the principal Indian IP statutes.

Trademark protection is governed by the Trade Marks Act, 1999 — covering the application and examination process (Section 18), opposition proceedings (Section 21), the ten-year renewable term of registration (Section 25), infringement remedies (Section 135), and cancellation for non-use after five years and three months of continuous non-use (Section 47).

Copyright protection is governed by the Copyright Act, 1957, under which copyright subsists automatically on creation of an original literary, dramatic, musical, or artistic work, cinematographic film, or sound recording (Section 13); registration with the Registrar of Copyrights in Form XIV under Rule 70 of the Copyright Rules, 2013 is optional but gives the Register evidentiary value under Section 48.

Patent protection is governed by the Patents Act, 1970. Following the Patents (Amendment) Rules, 2024 (effective 15 March 2024), the window for filing a Request for Examination under Section 11B of the Act, read with Rule 24B(1)(i) of the Patent Rules, is 31 months from the date of priority or filing, whichever is earlier — a significantly compressed timeline that requires early strategic decisions on which inventions to pursue for examination.

Our advisory services span IP portfolio audits, registration strategy across these three regimes, licensing and assignment structuring, and coordination with litigation counsel where enforcement becomes necessary.

IPR advisory is the strategic management of a business's intellectual property under the Patents Act 1970, the Trade Marks Act 1999, the Copyright Act 1957 and the Designs Act 2000 — the identification of the IP the business owns, the protection of it through the registrations and the filings, the management of the portfolio, the exploitation of it through the licensing and the assignments, and the enforcement of it against the infringers. The advisory runs from the first trademark search to the portfolio that the business sells or licenses.

The IP is the asset the business's brand and its innovation are built on, and it is the asset most businesses protect last. The trademark that is registered early becomes a defendable brand; the one that is not registered becomes a fight for the name the business already built. The patent that is filed before the disclosure stays protectable; the one filed after the publication is gone. The protection is a calendar discipline as much as a legal one.

The cost of the unprotected IP is the asset that leaks: the brand that another business registers first, the innovation that goes unprotected into the market, the IP that is used by the ex-employees and the competitors without the recourse. Each is an asset the business created and did not secure.

This service is for businesses building brands and innovations. We map the IP across the business, plan the protection under the IP statutes — the trademarks, the patents, the copyrights, the designs — manage the registrations and the renewals, structure the licensing and the assignments, and build the enforcement strategy so the business's IP is an asset that is owned, protected and exploited.