Intellectual Property Rights in Industrial Bioprocess Engineering

Industrial bioprocess engineering is an aggregation of chemistry, biology, mathematics and industrial design that particularly deals with various biotechnological processes employed in large-scale production in bio-related industries. It applies the principles of physics, chemistry and other allied disciplines of engineering to design and mimics the entities and processes close to nature. Since they deal with nature-like entities and processes which are not obviously natural and have potential novelty and utility aspects, they inherently qualify for protection by way of intellectual property rights enabling the first time manufacturers an opportunity to enjoy the fruits of hard work, time and monetary investments for a stipulated period of time and to further exclude others to exploit the results and products without their permission. These rights are territorial in nature, therefore, a potential invention has to be reviewed keenly towards protection on intellectual property terms in accordance with the domestic and international regulations for widespread societal acceptance and exclusivities without compromising on the quality. The international agencies such as the World Intellectual Property Organization strive hard in harmonizing the intellectual property related rules that are acceptable by all for fair trade and negotiations at global levels, supported by the national framework of each nation.