Designs, Integrated Circuits, GIs and Confidential Information: History, Significance and Interface
Law of Designs · Unit I · Topic 1 of 13 · 7 min read
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Cases checked to exist. Read the judgment before quoting a holding.
Every case cited here has been checked to exist — the citation resolves and names the right parties. The propositions attributed to each case have not been verified line by line against the judgment. Case names link through to the full judgment: read it before quoting a holding in an examination answer, and never carry a proposition from notes into court on trust.
What Unit I asks. The KSLU syllabus opens with the “Indian and international history of designs, integrated circuits, geographical indications and confidential information”, their “significance” for socio-economic, technological and industrial growth, and the “interface” between them. The other notes deal with each right on its own. This note puts the four side by side, which is what an essay on Unit I needs.
1. One family of industrial property
Article 1(2) of the Paris Convention, 1883 lists the objects of industrial property: patents, utility models, industrial designs, trade marks, service marks, trade names, indications of source or appellations of origin, and the repression of unfair competition. Three of our four rights are in that list; confidential information came in through unfair competition (Article 10bis). Layout designs of integrated circuits were added much later. TRIPS, 1994 gave each a section of its own in Part II: geographical indications (Articles 22 to 24), industrial designs (Articles 25 and 26), layout-designs (Articles 35 to 38) and undisclosed information (Article 39). India enacted the Designs Act, the GI Act and the Semiconductor Integrated Circuits Layout-Design Act between 1999 and 2000 to meet the TRIPS deadline for developing countries, and left confidential information to contract and equity.
2. History in outline
| Right | International | India |
|---|---|---|
| Designs | UK Calico Printers’ Act, 1787; Paris (1883) Art. 5quinquies; Hague Agreement (1925); Locarno (1968) | Patterns and Designs Protection Act, 1872; Indian Patents and Designs Act, 1911; Designs Act, 2000 |
| GIs | Paris indications of source; Madrid (1891); Lisbon (1958); TRIPS | Passing off and certification marks; GI Act, 1999, in force from 15 September 2003 |
| Integrated circuits | US Semiconductor Chip Protection Act, 1984; Washington Treaty (1989, not in force); TRIPS | Semiconductor Integrated Circuits Layout-Design Act, 2000 |
| Confidential information | Equity: Prince Albert v. Strange (1849), Saltman (1948); US Uniform Trade Secrets Act (1979); TRIPS Art. 39; EU Directive 2016/943 | Contract and equity; Law Commission’s 289th Report (2024) proposes a statute |
Three themes run through the history. First, each right began as a response to a particular industry: textile printing for designs, wine and spirits for GIs, the US chip industry for layouts, and employee movement and industrial espionage for trade secrets. Second, the international rules came from the countries whose industries wanted them, and developing countries accepted them as part of the TRIPS bargain. Third, India’s GI law was driven by fear of misappropriation abroad: the US patents on turmeric and basmati rice and the use of “Darjeeling” by foreign sellers showed that without a domestic register India could not ask others to protect its names.
3. Significance for growth
- Designs reward investment in appearance, which is how consumer goods compete once function is standard. Design registration is cheap and fast, which suits small manufacturers in furniture, textiles, utensils and electrical fittings.
- GIs are collective rights tied to a place. They can raise prices for rural producers, protect handicraft traditions, and support tourism and exports. They do this only if producers register as authorised users and the quality standards are enforced.
- Integrated circuits are central to electronics, telecom and defence. With the India Semiconductor Mission bringing fabrication and packaging to India, the layout-design law matters more than it did when India only designed chips for foreign firms.
- Confidential information protects know-how that cannot be patented or that the owner prefers not to disclose. It underpins outsourcing, research collaboration and technology transfer, and India’s IT and pharmaceutical sectors rely on it heavily.
4. The interface
(a) Designs and copyright
An artistic work applied to an article can be both. Section 15 of the Copyright Act channels it into design law once the design is registered, or, if unregistered, once it has been applied more than fifty times by an industrial process. The Supreme Court restated the test in Cryogas Equipment v. Inox India, 2025 INSC 483: first ask whether the work is a purely artistic work or a design derived from it and applied to an article by an industrial process; if it is not a design, ask whether its shape is chosen for function or for appeal to the eye. The designs–copyright note covers this in detail. EU law, by contrast, allows cumulative protection (Cofemel, CJEU, 2019).
(b) Designs and trade marks
Section 2(d) of the Designs Act excludes trade marks from the definition of design, but the shape or get-up of a product can function as a mark and be protected by passing off. A five-judge bench of the Delhi High Court in Carlsberg Breweries v. Som Distilleries (2018) held that a suit for design infringement may be joined with a claim of passing off based on the same product’s trade dress, because the causes of action arise from the same transaction.
(c) Designs and patents
A design protects appearance judged by the eye; a patent protects technical function. The definition of design excludes any mode or principle of construction and anything that is in substance a mere mechanical device. A product can carry both: a patent for the mechanism and a design for its shape.
(d) Designs and confidential information
A design must be new at the filing date. Showing it to manufacturers or buyers before filing can destroy novelty unless it is shown in confidence. A non-disclosure agreement therefore protects both the information and the later registration.
(e) Layout-designs and the other rights
A chip layout is not a design (it has no visual appeal to the buyer), is usually not a patentable invention, and fits copyright badly. Hence the sui generis Act. The design files and process know-how behind a layout are guarded as trade secrets, and foundries work under strict confidentiality terms. The layout-design right expressly permits reverse engineering, while the law of confidence forbids misuse of information received in confidence; the two can pull in different directions when an employee leaves for a competitor.
(f) GIs and trade marks
Section 25 of the GI Act stops the registration of a GI as a trade mark by persons outside the region, and section 26 protects trade marks applied for or registered in good faith before the GI. Collective and certification marks under the Trade Marks Act offer an alternative route, and are the usual route abroad.
(g) GIs, designs and traditional knowledge
A GI protects a name and its link to a place; it does not stop anyone copying the appearance of the goods under a different name. A Channapatna toy maker who wants to stop copies of a particular toy needs design registration. Traditional production methods may be kept within a community, but the GI specification must describe them, which creates a tension between GI registration and secrecy.
How this is examined
Expect an essay such as “Trace the history and significance of designs, integrated circuits, geographical indications and confidential information” or a short note on the “interface between designs and other IPRs”. Use the history table for the first half, the growth points for significance, and two or three interface pairs with authority. Cross-refer to the individual notes for the statutory detail.
Now try the real questions: Law of Designs past question papers.