Shankar (Assistant Company Secretary) 02 June 2013

Which on is applicable & how to proceed ?

Dear Clubbers,

I request your guidance for a solution. The issue is given below.

My client is an engineer & has designed 5 different bottle label for a water company. In that the water company has requested to design 5 labels and told him that they would select only 1 from the 5.

Being a fresher he is ignorant about agreements & laws pertaining to business. Without written agreement, he has designed and gave the same.

There was an oral statement by the company that Rs.25000/- would be paid for the design. But out of ignorance he has given all the 5 designs and was paid only Rs.5000/- in cash.

Now we would like to know:

1) How to register the design ? Whether under patent or copyrights act.

2) My client has registered with the Registrar of Creative Commission but he says he did not get any registration number. So how to go ahead with the Registrar of creative Commission ?

3) Please help me with a DRAFT Agreement with all legal clauses for entering into contract for above mentioned projects.

4) What we have to do further? We are not interested to go ahead straight away legally as the company has political background.

5) The Company management has selected 1 design and given for printing. What we have to do now ?

6) Further to that what we have to do ?

Please guide us.................

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1 Replies

sanjay kumar (BE/ LLM in Corporate Laws) 03 June 2013

In my opinion:-

1.Your friend has already received Rs.5000/- in cash from the company. So the design is as good as SOLD.

2.For Registrar of Creative Commission, you have to first enquire about the status of your application and reasons for rejection, if any.

3.There cannot be a general Draft agreement. A general Agreement may lead you into problems. Agreements have to be task specific.

4 & 5. For all practical purposes, this particular Design now belongs to the company. At best,you can raise the issue of their promise of Rs.25000/-. But since there was no written agreement, its a more a case of goodwill and trust. You may not have any legal recouse for that.

However, other learned advocates may have alternative opinions,which you can explore.