Trademark vs Copyright vs Patent vs Design

Last updated: 14 November 2026  ·  10 min read

The quick answer

A trademark protects your brand. Copyright protects creative work. A patent protects an invention. A design registration protects how a product looks.

हिंदी में: ट्रेडमार्क आपके ब्रांड नाम और लोगो की रक्षा करता है। कॉपीराइट लेखन, संगीत, कला और सॉफ़्टवेयर जैसे रचनात्मक काम की रक्षा करता है। पेटेंट किसी नए आविष्कार की रक्षा करता है। डिज़ाइन रजिस्ट्रेशन किसी उत्पाद के आकार और रूप की रक्षा करता है।

People use these words loosely. A founder will say he wants to "patent" his brand name, or "copyright" a product idea, and what he means is simply that he wants it protected. The loose usage does no harm in conversation. It does harm when it leads to filing the wrong thing, or to believing you are covered when you are not. The simplest test is to ask what exactly a copycat would take from you: the name, the content, the way the thing works, or the way it looks. Each answer points to a different law.

Side-by-side comparison

Terms shown are general. Copyright terms vary by type of work. Check the Act or ask an agent for your exact case.

Each right in plain words

Trademark: who it comes from

A trademark is a sign that tells buyers whose goods or services they are getting. Usually it is a name or a logo. It can also be a tagline, a label, a colour combination or the shape of a pack. The law is the Trade Marks Act, 1999. A registration is valid for 10 years from the date of application and can be renewed every 10 years for as long as the business wants it.

Two features set it apart from the other three. It is tied to particular goods and services, grouped into classes, so the same word can sometimes belong to different owners in unrelated trades. And it is the only one of the four that can last indefinitely. Our guide on what a trademark is covers the types of marks in detail.

Copyright: how it is expressed

Copyright protects original works: writing, drawings, photographs, music, films, sound recordings and software code. The law is the Copyright Act, 1957. Protection begins when the work is created. No filing is needed for the right to exist, and registration is optional. Why register, then? Because an entry in the Register of Copyrights is good evidence of who owns the work and from when, which saves a great deal of argument if there is a dispute.

The limit to remember is that copyright covers the expression and not the idea behind it. If you write a recipe book, nobody may copy your text and photographs. Anybody may cook the dishes, and write their own book about them. For many works the term is the author's lifetime plus 60 years, though it differs for some categories such as films and sound recordings.

Patent: how it works

A patent protects an invention, meaning a product or process that is new, involves an inventive step and can be made or used in industry. The law is the Patents Act, 1970. The term is 20 years from the date of filing, it cannot be renewed after that, and fees have to be paid periodically to keep the patent in force during the term.

Patents are the hardest of the four to get and the easiest to lose by accident. The invention must be new on the day you file. If you have already shown it at a trade fair, posted a demo video or sold a batch, you may have destroyed your own novelty. The Act also lists things that are not treated as inventions at all, among them business methods, mathematical methods and computer programs as such. In return for the monopoly you must describe the invention fully in the application, and that description becomes public.

Design: how it looks

A design registration protects the appearance of an article: its shape, configuration, pattern or ornament, as judged by the eye. The law is the Designs Act, 2000. Protection lasts 10 years and can be extended once by 5 years.

Like a patent, a design must be new and must not have been published before you apply. It protects looks only. Any feature that exists purely because the product has to work that way falls outside it. Think of the outline of a table fan, the pattern on a range of tiles, the form of a perfume bottle.

One product, four rights: a worked example

Here is a hypothetical. A small company in Rajkot develops an insulated steel flask with a lid that locks in a new way, and plans to sell it under the name "Garmaa". The name and the facts are invented for this page.

• The lid mechanism is a technical solution. If it is new and inventive, it is patent territory. The company must file before the flask is shown to distributors.
• The fluted outer shape of the flask does no technical job. It just looks good. That is a design, and again the application should be made before launch.
• The name "Garmaa" and its logo identify whose flask it is. That is a trademark, filed in the class covering household containers, after a search to see that the name is free.
• The instruction leaflet, product photographs, website text and the advertising jingle are creative works. Copyright exists in them already. The company should make sure it owns them, which is a separate question from who paid for them.

Look at what happens over time. The design right ends after 15 years at most. The patent ends after 20. From then on anyone may make a flask with that lid and that shape. They still may not call it "Garmaa". If the company has spent those years building the brand, the name is by then the most valuable thing it owns, and it is the one right that never has to expire.

Where people mix them up

The logo: trademark or copyright?

Both can apply. A logo is an artistic work, so copyright exists in the drawing. It is also a brand identifier, so it can be registered as a trademark. For a business, the trademark does the heavier lifting, because it stops competitors using a similar logo on similar goods even if they drew theirs from scratch.

The trap is ownership. If a freelance designer drew your logo, do not assume the copyright is yours because you paid the invoice. Get a short written assignment signed. It costs almost nothing at the time and is awkward to obtain five years later when the designer cannot be traced. Whether to file the name or the logo first is a separate question, covered in name or logo first.

The product shape: design, trademark or copyright?

For a new product, the design registration is the natural fit. A shape can become a trademark too, but usually only after years of use have taught buyers to recognise it as coming from one source. Copyright is a poor substitute here. Under the Copyright Act, protection for a design that could have been registered but was not can fall away once the article has been produced in quantity. In short: if the look of the product matters commercially, register the design, and do it before the product is public.

Software and apps

The source code and the screens are copyright works. The app's name and icon are trademarks. Whether anything in it can be patented is a narrow, technical question, and most apps do not qualify. Founders often spend months worrying about a patent while the name, which is the thing a rival would actually copy, sits unfiled.

Company name, domain name and trademark

Registering a company with the Registrar of Companies or buying a domain gives you the right to that company name or that web address. Neither gives you trademark rights in the brand. It is quite possible to own the company and the domain and still receive a notice from someone holding an earlier trademark. If that worry sounds familiar, read what to do when a similar brand name already exists.

What none of the four protect

A bare idea. "A subscription service for home-cooked tiffins" is a business idea, and anybody may run with it. The law protects what you build from the idea: the brand, the content, the technology, the product's look.

Information you intend to keep secret is another case. A recipe, a supplier list or a manufacturing know-how can be commercially valuable without fitting any of the four boxes, and a patent would force you to publish it. India has no separate trade secrets statute. Such information is protected in practice through confidentiality agreements, employment terms and sensible internal controls. If your edge is a secret, the paperwork that matters is the contract. Our contracts guide is a starting point.

Which one do you need?

• You sell under a name or logo. Start with a trademark. Search first with our trademark search guide.
• You create written, visual, musical or software work. Copyright arises automatically on creation. Registering it gives you stronger proof of ownership.
• You have invented something new. A patent may fit. Do not publish or sell it before you file, because disclosure can affect novelty.
• Your product has a distinctive shape or pattern. A design registration protects the look.

Many businesses need more than one. A product can have a patented mechanism, a registered design, a trademarked name and copyright in its manual.

A few typical cases, to make it concrete. A restaurant or a clothing label mostly needs trademarks. A furniture maker needs a trademark for the brand and design registrations for its signature pieces. A publisher, a YouTube channel or a training institute lives on copyright and should trademark the channel or institute name. An engineering firm with a new machine needs patent advice before it does anything else. A software company needs clean ownership of its code, in writing, from every employee and contractor, and a trademark for the product name.

What to file first, and when

Budgets are limited, so order matters. Two rules settle most cases.

Anything that depends on novelty goes first. Patents and designs can be lost by early disclosure, so they must be filed before the launch, the exhibition, the investor deck sent without a confidentiality agreement, or the Instagram teaser. If the invention is still being refined, ask a patent agent about filing a provisional specification to secure a date while you finish the work.

The trademark goes in as soon as the name is final. Trademark rights do not depend on secrecy, but the earlier applicant generally stands in the stronger position, and names get taken. File before you print packaging. You can use the TM symbol from the day you file. The symbols guide explains when ® becomes available.

Copyright can wait, since the right exists anyway. What cannot wait is the paperwork showing that the business owns the work: assignments from freelancers, agencies and co-founders. Register the works that would hurt most if copied.

If money allows only one filing this quarter and you have no invention, make it the word mark for your brand name. The cost guide shows what that involves, and the startup legal checklist puts it in context with the other early filings.

What to do this week

1. Write down what a competitor could copy from you: the name, the logo, the content, the mechanism, the look. Put the matching right next to each.
2. For anything on the list that is new and not yet public, stop and take advice before you show it to anyone outside the business.
3. Run a quick availability check on your brand name, then get a proper search done.
4. Use the class finder to see which trademark classes your goods and services fall in.
5. Find out who made your logo, website, photographs and code, and whether there is anything in writing transferring the rights to the business.
6. Check whether key staff and vendors have signed confidentiality terms.

Frequently asked questions