106 designs released free of cost
Background
Most conversations about intellectual property assume a single motive: exclude everyone else. That is what a registered right does — it gives the owner the ability to stop others.
But a right you own is a right you can choose how to use. Mr Mithilesh Patel, working with IP BANK India, chose to use 106 industrial design registrations the other way: to release them for public use, free of cost.
What we did
Each of the 106 designs was taken through the full registration process first. That order matters and is easy to get wrong. An unregistered design placed in the public domain is simply unprotected — someone else can register something similar and then assert it against the very people who were using it freely. Registration first, release second, is what keeps the designs open and stops anyone else from closing them.
We handled drafting, representation sheets, classification and prosecution across the full set, then documented the release so the terms of public use are stated rather than assumed.
The outcome
106 industrial design registrations released for public use at no cost — a body of protected design work deliberately opened to anyone who wants to make from it.
Why it matters
Open release only works when it is built on ownership. The registration is what makes the openness durable and enforceable, rather than a gesture that a later filer can undo.
Protecting something similar?
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