The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations with 193 member states. The mission of WIPO is to develop a balanced and accessible international intellectual property (IP) system, which rewards creativity, stimulates innovation and contributes to economic development while safeguarding the public interest.
WIPO was established by the WIPO Convention in 1967 with a mandate from its Member States to promote the protection of IP throughout the world through cooperation among states and in collaboration with other international organizations. Its headquarters are in Geneva & Switzerland. The Director General is Francis Gurry.
India is a member of World Intellectual Property Organization a specialized agency of UN in the area of Intellectual Property. The nodal activities related to WIPO were transferred to this Department from Department of Higher Education in 2005.
The member states of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) on May 8, 2020, appointed by consensus Mr. Daren Tang as the Organization’s next Director General, with Mr. Tang’s six-year term beginning on October 1, 2020.
Mr. Tang’s appointment by the General Assembly, WIPO’s highest governing body, followed his nomination by the WIPO Coordination Committee in March, 2020. Mr. Tang will succeed Mr. Francis Gurry, who has served as WIPO’s Director General since October 1, 2008.
Consumer Protection Act
Consumer Protection Act, 2019 expands the concepts that would be covered by the Act, for example, product liability, e-commerce, etc. The protection provided by the Act is for the goods bought or service utilized.[1] Section 2(o) of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 defines services, while Section 2(42) of the current Act defines the same.
Service means any kind of service which is made available to the consumers for their use for payment of consideration. The definition can be divided into three parts: descriptive part, inclusive part and exclusionary part.
The descriptive part says that service includes ‘any’ kind of service, which has been availed by a potential consumer. This means that any and every kind of service shall come within the definition. The inclusive part is the list of services that have been mentioned in the statute. CPA, 2019 includes e-commerce as a new service under the statute. The telecom sector was considered as a service and has now been explicitly mentioned in the statute now. The exclusionary part is that part to determine those services whether hired for free or not and for personal service or not.
Contract of service and contract for service
Today’s world, organizations tend to enter into a number of contracts with a large number of people/organizations for meeting their business and day-to-day requirements.
Organizations hire employees or engage the services of a third party to meet their needs. However, for all purposes, they enter into a number of contracts.
All such contracts entered into by the company can be broadly divided into two categories-
Contract for services/work for hire agreement
Parties: A contract for service is an agreement that is entered into by the company with a third-party for availing its services.
The third-party is an independent service provider, not an employee of the company.
The third party is not entitled to the benefits that the employees of the company receive or are entitled to from time to time during the course of their employment.
Control: The company does not exercise control over the third-party.
Purpose and ownership of intellectual property: The company enters into such contracts where they want the service provider to assign the ownership of the intellectual property rights in the created work to it and in return pay for the work done by the service provider.
Contract of services/employment contracts
Parties: A contract of service is an agreement that is entered into by the company with an individual for availing his/her services.
The individual here is the employee of the company and is entitled to the benefits that the employees of the company receive or are entitled to from time to time during the course of their employment.
Control: The company enjoys control over the work created by the employee and the employee is bound to obey the orders of his employer.
Ownership of intellectual property: The ownership of the intellectual property created by the employee rests with the company.
A Consumer Dispute
Consumer dispute means a dispute where the person against whom a complaint has been made, denies or disputes the allegations contained in the complaint;
consumer dispute means a DISPUTE relating to an account (including a deposit account), agreement, extension of credit, loan, service or product provided by the Lender that is primarily for personal, family or household purposes. “BUSINESS DISPUTE” means any DISPUTE that is not a CONSUMER DISPUTE.
consumer dispute means a dispute between an individual who seeks or acquires real or personal.
consumer dispute means any dispute arising from the sale of goods or provision of services between consumers and traders.
Council
The National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC), India, is a semi-legal commission in India that was set up in 1988 under the Consumer Protection Act of 1986. Its administrative centre is in New Delhi. The commission is headed by a sitting or retired judge of the Supreme Court of India. The commission is, as of now, headed by Justice R K Agrawal, previous adjudicator of the Supreme Court of India.
Section 21 of Consumer Protection Act, 1986 places that the National Consumer will have jurisdiction: To engage an objection valued more than one crore and furthermore have Appellate and Revisional purview from the sets of State Commissions or district .
State Commision
In terms of Section 7 of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986, the State Govt. set up the State Consumer Protection Council. The Council was re-constituted under Notification No. 32(B)-DCA consisting of 85 members. The Minister-in-Charge, Consumer Affairs Department is the Chairman of the Council. The Council holds at least two meetings a year. The list of members is given in Annex XIX.
The object of the State Consumer Protection Council is to promote the rights of the Consumers as laid down in clauses (a) to (f) of Section 6 of the C.P. Act. 1986 as re-produced below :-
(a) the right to be protected against the marketing of goods 19[and services] which are hazardous to life and property;
(b) the right to be informed about the quality, quantity, potency, purity, standard and price of goods 19[or services, as the cases may be], so as to protect the consumer against unfair trade practice;
(c) the right to be assured, wherever possible, access to a variety of goods 19[and services] at competetive prices;
(d) the right to be heard and to be assured that consumer’s interest will receive due consideration at appropriate forums;
(e) the right to seek redressal against unfair trade practices 19[or restrictive trade practices] or unscrupulous exploitation of consumers; and
(f) the right to consumer’s education.
District Commission
District Consumer Protection Council:
In order to promote and protect the rights of the consumers at the district level, provisions have been made in the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 Vide Act, No. 62 of 2002 (w.e.f. (5-3-2003) for the establishment of District Consumer protection council at the district level.
The State Government shall Establish for every district, by notification, a Council to be known as the District Consumer Protection Council with effect from such date as it may specify in such notification [Section 8(1)].
The District Consumer Protection Council shall consist of the following members, namely:
The Collector of the district, who shall be its Chairman, and
Such member of other official and nonofficial members representing such interests as may be prescribed by the State Government. [Section 8A(2)].
The Council shall meet as and when necessary but not less than two meetings shall be held every years.
The Council shall meet as such time and place within the District as the Chairman may think fit.
Reference
Aishwarya Says:
I have always been against Glorifying Over Work and therefore, in the year 2021, I have decided to launch this campaign “Balancing Life”and talk about this wrong practice, that we have been following since last few years. I will be talking to and interviewing around 1 lakh people in the coming 2021 and publish their interview regarding their opinion on glamourising Over Work.
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In the year 2021, we wrote about 1000 Inspirational Women In India, in the year 2022, we would be featuring 5000 Start Up Stories.
Aishwarya Sandeep 
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