flIPstaan – An Introduction

I have heard somewhere: “Follow your passion and you would never have to work another day in your life”. ‘flIPstaan’ is exactly that. When the lockdown happened in March of this year, there was a pause to regular work and one had a lot of time to spare. I first thought of doing an online course to increase my knowledge in my respective domain. However, none of the available online courses on Intellectual Property Rights excited me. Having an interest in films, I ended up doing an Online Course on ‘Writing about Films’.

Recently, it struck me that one can combine ‘films’ and Intellectual Property Rights in a novel manner and this lead to the adoption, ideation and coinage of ‘flIPstaan’. The term ‘flIPstaan’ and its logo signify that it will be a take on Intellectual Property in a way that is a turn around to how we normally learn and discuss about Intellectual Property Rights. That’s why we chose the term ‘flIPstaan’.

The creation of the logo of ‘flIPstaan’ also has a very interesting story behind it. First, I thought that I will share multiple way of writing ‘flIPstaan’ to members of the public and receive a response. Depending upon the maximum response, I would have chosen the manner of writing the term ‘flIPstaan’. However, as I was developing it, I combined two fonts (Stencil and Snap ITC) to make it in its present form. One for all the other letters except ‘IP’ and the other for the letters ‘IP’. Thereafter, to give a stress on the letters ‘IP’, I increased the font size of the same. As there is always a grey area as to what is ‘Original’ under the Copyright Act, 1957, I chose to also add colours to the manner of writing to ensure that there is no claim whatsoever that it isn’t ‘Original’. Lastly, I added the ‘block arrows’ to signify a FLIP.

‘flIPstaan’ will be a continuing series on combining two of my interests, ‘Cinema’ and ‘Intellectual Property’. In this series, we will learn and discuss Intellectual Property from real/fictional situations in films, shows, serials etc. We believe that explaining legal concepts without providing for relatable situations also leads to incomplete understanding. We intend to cover the entire gamut of issues and topics pertaining to Intellectual Property Rights in ‘flIPstaan’. With all humility, we present you ‘flIPstaan’. First post will be published soon.

We hope and wish it will be a joyful ride combined with intellectual stimulation. As a heads up, the following will be our first three posts under ‘flIPstaan’’:

• Understanding Rationale and function of Trade Marks from ‘PK’
• ‘Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana’ and Trade Secrets
• ‘Angrezi Medium’ and Dilution of Trade Mark