Proprietors:

Jaskeerat Bedi | Richa Thakker | Suganth Chellamuthu

INTRODUCTION

Intellectual property rights (IPRs) can be broadly defined as legal rights established over creative or inventive ideas. Such legal rights generally allow right holders to exclude the unauthorized commercial use of their creations/inventions by third persons. The rationale for the establishment of a legal framework on IPRs is that it is a signal to society that creative and inventive ideas will be rewarded. This does not mean that there is no other way of rewarding such ideas or that this system is absolutely necessary, even less sufficient, to reward inventiveness or creativity. Nevertheless, it would be difficult to deny that IPRs do have a role to play in setting up of any such reward system. There are two broad categories of IPRs: one, industrial property2 covering IPRs such as patents, trademarks, geographical indications and industrial designs; two, copyright and related rights covering artistic and literary works, performances, broadcasts and the like. IPRs that do not fit into this classical division are termed sui generis, meaning one-of-its-kind. Such sui generis rights include those covering lay-out designs of semi conductor chips and plant breeders rights.

Several of the IPRs are relevant to the agricultural sector that can be used to protect goods or services produced in the agricultural These are mainly patents, plant breeders rights, trademarks, geographical indications and trade secrets. It is possible to include lay-out designs for chips that are designed to perform certain functions related to agriculture, but these are assumed to be incorporated in machines produced in the industrial sector. Similarly, scientific papers or television programmes covering ideas related to agriculture are not seen as directly being produced in this sector. The relevant IPRs are dealt with below. Patents are probably the most important IPR today for agricultural goods and services as they provide, the strongest protection for patentable plants and animals and biotechnological processes for their production. Patents universally give the patentee the right to prevent third parties from making, using or selling the patented product or process. Patents, however, have to be disclosed to the public through the patent documents. This enables researchers to develop further useful products or services. Patentable products have to meet the criteria of patentability, viz., novelty, i.e. that which is not known in the prior art, nonobviousness i.e. that which involves an inventive step and usefulness i.e. that which is industrially applicable. With some nuanced differences the patent laws of all countries follow these criteria. However, not all countries allow the patenting of plants and animals or even microorganisms or biotechnological processes.

IPR IN AGRICULTURE

IPR IN AGRICULTURE

SUI GENERIS: Many countries have developed plant breeders' rights to reward conventional plant breeding efforts. Such sui generis protection is weaker than patent protection in that the right holders can only prevent third parties from commercially exploiting the protected material. The criteria used to grant such protection is also lower than that used to determine patentability as these are distinctness, i.e. distinguishable from earlier known varieties, uniformity i.e. display of the same essential characteristics in every plant and stability i.e. the retention of the essential characteristics on reproduction. Such protection encourages breeding efforts in the private sector. Marks used in commerce can be applied to both agricultural and industrial products and services. For instance, trademarks are used to market seeds or spraying services. The essential purpose of a trademark is to distinguish the goods and services of one enterprise from another, thus preventing deception of the consumer. Such protection prevents the wrongful use of commercial marks and is not limited in time, although registration may have to be renewed from time to time. Almost all countries in the world protect trademarks. GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATION: One category of commercial marks more often used in agriculture than industry are geographical indications, including appellations of origin. These are marks associated with products originating from a country, region or locality where the quality, reputation or other characteristics of the product are essentially attributable to its geographical origin.

VARIATION IN IPR FOR AGRICULTURE

PLANT BREEDERS RIGHTS: Vegetatively propagated plants were first made patentable in the US only in 1930. And the protection of plant varieties (or plant breeders rights - PBRs), a new form of intellectual property, only became widespread in the second half of the 20th Century. Thus systems for the protection of plants derive from the economic structure and circumstances of agriculture that prevailed in developed countries in this period. That such systems came into being reflected the growing interest of private breeders in protecting their intellectual property.

VARIATION IN IPR FOR AGRICULTURE

Union Internationale pour la Protection des Obtentions Vgtales/ International Union for the Protection of New Varietiesof Plants (UPOV) The purpose of the UPOV Convention is to ensure that the member States of the Union acknowledge the achievements of breeders of new plant varieties, by making available to them exclusive property right, on the basis of a set of uniform and clearly defined principles.The Indian government,which has recently decided to seek admission to UPOV, has incorporated in its PVP legislation (2002) a clause (39 (1) (iv)) that states: a farmer shall be deemed to be entitled to save, use, sow, resow, exchange, share or sell his farm produce including seed of a variety protected under this Act in the same manner as he was entitled to before the coming into force of this Act: Provided that the farmer shall not be entitled to sell branded seed of a variety protected under this Act. 23

VARIATION IN IPR FOR AGRICULTURE

Farmers Rights are not an intellectual property right, but they need to be viewed as an important counterbalance to the rights accorded to breeders in the formal sector under PVP or patents. The Farmers Rights In ITPGRFA Treaty provides for a financing mechanism to be set up, financed by contributions and the share of the proceeds of commercialization, which will enable the implementation of agreed plans and programmes for farmers who conserve and sustainably utilize plant genetic resources for food and agriculture.45

NEW YORK RESTORATION PROJECT http://www.nyrp.org/ Company brief:

PRIOR ART RESEARCH

international organization

New York Restoration Project (NYRP) is a non-profit organization dedicated to reclaiming and restoring New York City parks, community gardens and open space. In partnership with the City of New York, NYRP is also leading MillionTreesNYC an initiative to plant and care for one million new trees throughout New York Citys five boroughs by 2017. FOOTPRINT-TRUST http://www.footprint-trust.co.uk/adoptgarden.html Company brief: The Adopt-A-Garden scheme was launched on the Isle of Wight in 2008 and is an innovative idea, which seeks to bring together two types of people. The person who has a garden they can no longer look after and the individual who wants a growing space. The householder gets their garden looked after for free and the gardener gets a free allotment in return.

PLANT IT 2020 /Www.plantit2020.org/ Company brief:

PRIOR ART RESEARCH

International organization

Plant-It 2020 is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit foundation that performs worldwide treeplanting at $1 per tree, donates fuel-efficient cooking stoves to needy families, and provides forestry, soil, and biochar education. Their services not only help reforest the world's cities and forests - they provide direct humanitarian aid by reducing hunger, thirst, malnutrition, poverty and indoor pollution while increasing the sustainability of not only the world's forests but also its people.

PLANT A TREE INDIA www.plantatreeindia.org

PRIOR ART RESEARCH

National organization

group of individuals, researchers, scientists, social activists who have joined hands together on a mutually agreed harmonious mission to Plant a Tree India for the noble cause of conserving environment of the Mother Nature. As the deforestation practices for the developmental cause has increased urbanization and the land have no alternative but to be beaten in terms of forest cover. We are continuously destroying the harmony of nature which is adversely affecting human, wild life, forest and the ecological equilibrium on the earth. UNITED WAY MUMBAI Www.unitedwaymumbai.org United Way Mumbai Helpline has designed several critical projects which have the capacity to create a measurable and wide impact on a large cross section of Mumbais population. These projects would build the capacity of the citizen to think on their own and empower them by providing the information, resources, inspiration and direction required to address issues they feel strongly about. This will lead to communities caring for their own locality, their city and for the nation at large.

IDEOLOGY
Adopt a tree, Adopt a garden. In today's busy buzzing life people have no time to spend quality time their loved ones. Available options for spending time together are also limited to sports, clubbing and eating. We have almost stopped spending time outdoors being close to nature. This may also be due to polluted environment and global warming and lack of Green areas. Hence, an idea to promote plating trees and developing garden of your own is being promoted through our idea.

COMPANY PROFILE
Ideology

SERVICES PROVIDED Land for gardening (payable) Trees according to species (payable) Plants (payable) Educate people about horticulture and taking care of their own garden (free) Water and fertilizers (free) Online tracking and updating about the condition of their garden (free) Weekend homes (payable) Weekend outing plans and packages (payable)

COMPANY PROFILE
Services

Merchandising Sale of vegetables, fruits produced from the gardens. Processed food items Hand crafted customized products

COMPANY PROFILE
Services

Condition - 20% profit from this sale to be retained by the organization Promotion Tax reduction schemes Collaboration with eco - friendly companies Research and development Hybrid variety of plants Exploring innovative methods to make natural products
Terms and conditions The maintenance of the garden will be done by the people owning it The only way of leaving the membership will be gifting their garden to their loved ones There will not be any kind of monetary selling of the garden

SERVICE MARK

Service Marks are marks used by services identifying the source of Service provided by Firm or Company or Individuals. These service marks are statutorily protected under The Trade Marks Act, 1999. The Services pertaining to the company are to be protected by registration under the service mark Planton. This would be applicable on all the resources belonging to the company. i.e Logistics, uniforms of service providers e.t.c.

TRADEMARK

Trademarks are required to be registered under the Trademark Act, 1999 with the name Planton for the merchandising of products. The products include Vegetables, fruits produced from the gardens. Processed food items Hybrid Seeds Hand crafted customized products which are made out of the resources of the plants and trees in the garden.

The labels of the products of the company are to be unique and the copyrights for labels need to be registered under the Copyright Act, 1957. This includes label specifications for the seeds packaging and other processed foods produced from the plants and trees of the garden.

COPYRIGHTS

PATENTS

Research and Development department of the company would be putting greater efforts in bringing up new and hybrids plants that yield high produce and environmental friendly. The hybrid plants thus produced need to be protected by Seeds Act 1966, Seeds Amendment Act, 1972 and Seeds Bill, 2004. The company would be sole owner of the patents.

REFERENCES

http://www.greenip.org/ http://www.footprint-trust.co.uk/adoptgarden.html http://www.footprint-trust.co.uk/adoptgarden.html http://www.plantit2020.org/ http://www.plantatreeindia.org/associate-partners.html http://www.unitedwaymumbai.org/home.html 1. Integrating Intellectual Property Rights and Development Policy- Agriculture & Genetic resources 2. Intellectual Property Rights In Indian Agriculture by- Jayashree Watal (Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations) 3. Intellectual Property Rights in Agriculture- National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, India- 2003

BIBLIOGRAPHY

TRADEMARK REGISTRATION FORM