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The patents are significant rudiments of intellectual property. They are the exclusive rights granted by the Government to the claimants (owners) on application after satisfying the standards laid down by the statute. Owners enjoy the right of protection and unauthorized commercialization of the patents. Law prescribes the remedies to the owners for infringement of their exclusive rights.

The patent laws, across the globe, are emerging out of various bilateral agreements, multilateral treaties and international conventions. The inception of World Intellectual Property Organization has triggered the process of harmonization of national laws with that of the international law. The TRIPS Agreement has laid down guidelines to its member countries to amend their national laws to incorporate the provisions stated in it. A new patent regime is being established across the world, with immediate enforcement of its guidelines by the developed countries in a phased manner in the developing and least developed countries. The new patent regime has stretched the scope of patents and embraces new areas such as product patents, patents in the arena of technology and software. The liberalization and globalization of economy has thrown up further challenges for protection of new inventions and creations in more than one country of inventions. It has nurtured the concept of 'global protection' of inventions resulting into monopoly and keeping the least developed countries away from accessing them and enjoying the fruits of new inventions. Many developed and developing countries have complied with the provisions of TRIPS and amended their patent laws. The least developed countries are on their way to enrich and harmonize their laws. The process of reforms has also started in the member countries of TRIPS.

The Indian pharmaceutical industry is emerging as a major hub for research, inventions and financial activities. Liberalization of economy and opening of international markets for private players have further triggered the growth of the pharma industry. Huge investments are flown into the pharma industry for the purpose of research and development of new drugs and medicines. A number of applications are being filed with patent offices across the world for grant of patents to their new innovations. Many complex issues relating to ownership, protection and commercialization of inventions are cropping up with expanded horizon of research and innovations in the pharma sector. Increased research activities and innovations have recognized the need of protection of their inventions to avoid unauthorized commercialization of new inventions.

Pharma patents have a special place in the intellectual property regime. Process patents were granted for the pharma inventions. They have facilitated the invention of new processes for an existing product with the help of reverse engineering methods. The TRIPS Agreement has unveiled curtains for new product patent regime in the pharma industry. With the uneven financial fronts, research and development activities, and marketing of drugs and pharmaceuticals, the developing countries are facing threats and challenges from multinational companies of developed countries. The impact of new patent regime is more significantly seen in developing counties in terms of costs of manufacturing, prices of drugs, investments in research and developsector, competitiveness, marketing strategies at national and international fronts. The companies, with huge investments in research and development activities and patent portfolio, are dominating the markets while other companies are vanishing by way of mergers and acquisitions.

In the knowledge driven economy, Intellectual Property (IP) has a significant role to play. The ever-changing technological development, particularly in the arena of information technology, has emphasized the importance of intellectual property, its commercialization and need for its protection. The advent and growth of computer technology, in the fields of hardware and software, has further bagged different classes of intellectual property, especially in the shape of copyrights, patents and trademarks.

Software and hardware are the two important components of computer technology. New innovations in the hardware technology are protected as patents. The software is protected by copyrights, as it is based on mathematical computations and algorithms. The courts have set aside the grant of patents with a plea that they are simple to software program encoded expressions of mathematical algorithms and also on ethical grounds. But, later, the US Supreme Court decision in Diamond vs Diehr case brought a remarkable change in the approach of the courts towards the software programs and technological applications. The need for patenting of software is recognized, as the copyright law is not able to distinguish between 'technical and non-technical software' and protect them. Today the law is settled in US. Courts are upholding the grant of patents to software innovations if applied to a practical application yielding a useful, concrete and tangible result. The software patent is considered as a patent that claims all or substantially all of its invention some feature function or process embodied in a computer program that is executed on a computer. In US, the number of software patents is on the rise and reached 15% of the total patents granted in the year 2002.

The advent of computer technology has changed the spectrum of knowledge creation across the globe. The computer technology consisting of hardware and software elements has added new dimensions in each and every quarter of technologies such as the manufacturing and production, communications and transportation, financial services, trade and businesses, and administration and governance of the society. Software programs, hardware designs and circuit-layouts are the bedrocks of the computer technology. Software programs may be in any form - algorithms, coded instructions, flow charts, recorded tapes or diskettes, magnetic records which are readable machines. They can be open source codes or objective codes.

New ideas are not protected under the law of intellectual property rights whereas expressions are protected. New software programs are developed as expressions of ideas with the help of alphanumerical manipulations. A lot of hard work is involved in the process of manipulation of existing alphanumericals in order to achieve the desired results. Business houses invest huge sum of money in developing these software programs. They expect to receive returns upon their investments by commercialization of the newly developed software programs. They seek protection for their programs and exclude other from using them unauthorized. The copyright law specifically protects the computer programs by considering them as mathematical expressions and compilations. They are not simple mathematical compilations. A significant amount of technical knowledge, expertise and skills are required to arrange the algorithms and codes in a logical way to process the information and result in expected outcomes. The success of the program depends upon the intellectual capital and technical expertise of an individual.

Intellectual property stems from the exercise of the mind and enjoys legal protection. It is intangible and created by intellectual efforts of people having creativity. It is accredited in various forms viz. copyrights, patents, trademarks, designs, trade secrets and geographical indications. The intellectual capital is the bedrock and driving force for creating the intellectual property in addition to the financial capital and infrastructure. An individual who creates or directs another individual to create intellectual property has a right on such property as in the case of ownership of tangible property. They are treated as personal property and others are excluded from using them without prior permission.

Intellectual property has a greater role to play in the economic development of a nation. As such, the responsibility to protect the intellectual property rights lies with the Government. It enacts legislations to recognize and protect the intellectual property. The modalities of recognition and protection of the intellectual property rights may differ from one country to the other. The experiences across the globe have developed some specific doctrines and theories to facilitate harmonious growth of intellectual property. Various international conventions and treaties have helped to strengthen the governance of intellectual property. With the establishment of WIPO, the processes and systems have gained momentum. Efforts are being made to bring uniformity among the laws of different countries. Under the auspices of various conventions, the developed, developing and least developed countries, have initiated amendments to their existing laws in line with the guidelines provided by the TRIPS. New doctrines, theories and arguments have evolved with the experiences faced by the nations while administering their Intellectual Property issues. There is a shift in the approach of Governments towards intellectual property. Some people argue that intellectual property is individual property like any other physical property as they are created by themselves, and others propound that they are the common property of the society developed by utilizing the resources of the society. A number of other complex problems are also experienced while granting patents, trademarks and copyrights, and other forms of intellectual property. The fundamental requirements, such as novelty, non-obviousness and utility of the inventions are cousing problems for the grant of Intellectual Property rights. Another important issue associated with Intellectual Property is the protection of the Intellectual Property and facilitating their commercialization by way of licencing, assignments and fixing of royalties. The process of granting Intellectual Property rights is cumbersome and time taking. The tenure of protection, calculation of damages, piracy and infringements, costs of litigation, concept of exclusive marketing rights are the other issues associated with intellectual property.