How is IPR recognized in the Competition Law? Also state the relationship of Competition Law and Intellectual Property Law.

The Competition Act, 2002 in India recognizes the importance of IPRs such as patents, Copyrights, trademarks, geographical indications, industrial designs and integrated circuit designs. Also, Section 3 of the Competition Act prohibits anti-competitive agreements, Section 3(5) lays down that this prohibition shall not restrict "the right of any person to restrain any infringement of or to impose reasonable conditions, as may be necessary for protecting any of his rights" enjoyed under the statutes relating to the above mentioned IPRs. Hence, this clearly implies that unreasonable conditions imposed by an IPR holder while licensing his Intellectual property rights would be prohibited under the Competition Act. Relationship of Competition Law and Intellectual Property Law Competition law maximizes social welfare by condemning monopolies while intellectual property law somehow also does the same by granting only temporary monopolies (restricted to pre-decided time frames). And after completion of such time frame competition replaces temporary monopolies. The rationale behind this approach is that the intellectual property law should provide economically meaningful monopolies. Otherwise, competition law which by itself does not condemn the mere possession of monopoly power, but rather certain exercises of or efforts to obtain it, might be allowed to interfere with the monopoly. Hence, there should be reasonable exercise of the monopoly power in order to protect the consumer's interest, otherwise competition law would surely hinder the practices of the monopoly market.