Advocates & Generals

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Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) was not very important for corporate India till liberalisation started. Nor was it a matter on which the government spent a lot of time thinking. Even in the first decade of liberalisation, the government and many Indian companies did not pay too much heed to IPR matters. In some cases, it worked to their advantage. The domestic pharmaceutical companies, for example, owe much of their early growth to the fact that India allowed only process patents in drugs, not product patents. On the other hand, the flip side was that one US firm had started selling Basmati rice labelling it Texmati, creating confusion in the minds of potential buyers.

It was after India signed on for TRIPs (trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights) during the WTO negotiations that things started changing. Now IPR in all its forms — trademarks, patents, copyrights — has become important for most corporations, whether they are doing business in India or in global markets. The government has started filing cases to protect the traditional knowledge of the country — yoga postures, for example, which some yoga practitioners in the US want to copyright.

Till a decade and a half ago, there were just about four well-known law firms specialising in IPR. Most full service firms also had IPR practices, but these were a very small part of their overall business. Often, only junior lawyers were assigned to handle the IPR requirements of their clients.

In the past five years, as IPR business and litigations have grown exponentially, so has the number of independent, specialist IPR firms. They have been created by ambitious young men and women who had the foresight to specialise in a branch of law that was considered obscure in this country even a decade ago. And they are well versed in the nuances of IPR in different countries around the world.

It is a hugely lucrative business, with an estimated net margin of about 60 per cent, and growing at 20-30 per cent. The growth of these boutique firms is forcing traditional full service firms to change their operating structures, including sharing of equity and profits.

Our cover story this issue looks at some lawyers making waves in IPR today, and how the business itself has changed over the years.