Protecting Your Drawings and IP When Sourcing From India

A buyer in the Netherlands had a part redesigned twice before it worked. The final drawing reflected eight months of back and forth with an engineer, three failed prototypes and a tolerance stack the buyer had worked out the hard way. Before sending it to a new Indian machine shop for a production quote, the buyer asked one question that mattered more than any clause in a contract. What actually stops this shop from making the part for someone else next year.

The honest answer surprised the buyer. It was not any single IP right. There was no patent, the part had never been registered as a design, and copyright turned out to be only part of the picture. The practical protection was a two-page confidentiality agreement signed before the file was ever sent.

Many buyers think the drawing itself is the protection. In India, for a typical manufacturing part, that assumption is usually wrong.

Before any of this matters, make sure you actually own the drawing

None of the protection below means anything if the buyer sending the file was never the rights holder to begin with. Under Section 17 of the Copyright Act, the author of a work is its first owner by default, and that default only shifts to someone else, an employer, a client who commissioned the work, in specific situations the Act spells out.

If your own team drew the part in-house, this is usually straightforward. It gets less straightforward fast if the drawing came from an outside engineering consultant, a design house you commissioned, an OEM customer who handed you their spec, or another manufacturer earlier in the chain. Paying for engineering work does not automatically mean every IP right moved to you. Whether it did depends on what the agreement under which the drawing was created actually says.

Before worrying about what protects the drawing once it leaves your inbox, check the agreement that produced it. If an outside party created it, confirm that agreement assigns you the copyright and any other relevant rights, not just a license to use the finished drawing yourself. Sending a file you do not actually hold the rights to is a different, earlier problem than anything a confidentiality agreement with your supplier can fix.

What buyers think protects a drawing, and what actually does

Three different things get called "protecting your IP" and they are not the same thing.

If you just want the checklist for what to do before your next drawing goes out, skip to a practical sequence for a new supplier relationship below. The sections in between explain why each step matters.

A patent protects a genuinely new and inventive product or process, one that clears real novelty and inventive-step tests, not just any drawing of a working part. An ordinary manufacturing drawing, a bracket, a housing, a machined part built to a known method, describes how to make something, not a new way of making it, so it is rarely patentable on its own.

A registered design protects how a product looks, not how it works. India's Designs Act, 2000 makes this distinction explicit. If a shape exists because the part needs to function that way, like the threading on a screw, it cannot be registered as a design at all. A part whose relevant features are dictated only by function may fall outside design protection entirely, before registration is even attempted.

Copyright is the one that actually applies automatically, and it is also the one buyers overestimate the most.

Copyright covers your drawing the moment you make it. The fifty-unit rule does not work the way most buyers hear it.

Under India's Copyright Act, 1957, an original technical drawing can qualify as an "artistic work" the moment it is created, whether or not it has any artistic quality, and copyright arises automatically, no registration needed.

Here is the part most buyers never hear about, and most online explainers get backwards. Section 15(2) of the same Act can end copyright protection in a work reproduced more than fifty times by an industrial process, but only if that work first qualifies as a "design" under the Designs Act, meaning it has some visual or ornamental feature with genuine eye appeal, not just a shape that happens to be functional. A drawing that never clears that first threshold is not subject to the fifty-unit cutoff at all, no matter how many units get made from it.

The Supreme Court addressed exactly this distinction in April 2025, in a case involving engineering drawings, Cryogas Equipment v. Inox India, a dispute over proprietary drawings for cryogenic LNG storage equipment. The Court set out a two-step test: first, whether a work is a pure artistic work or a design derived from one that has gone through industrial production, and second, whether it passes a "functional utility" test looking at the work's dominant purpose. Rather than decide that question itself for these particular drawings, the Court sent the case back to trial, directing the lower court to rule on the pending interim injunction within two months and to complete a full trial applying the new test within a year. What the Supreme Court actually overturned was a threshold dismissal, the lower court had thrown the case out early on the assumption the drawings were obviously functional and therefore unprotected, and the Supreme Court held that call could not be made without a trial on the facts.

That matters for how to read this case. The Court did not rule that these drawings, or engineering drawings generally, keep their copyright regardless of volume. What it settled is the test a court has to actually apply, on evidence, before Section 15(2) can end anyone's copyright, rather than assuming the fifty-unit number applies automatically the moment a part reaches production quantity. Whether a specific drawing clears the "artistic work, not really a design" threshold is still a fact-specific question a court has to answer case by case. What a buyer can take from this with confidence is narrower than "my drawing is safe": a blanket "fifty units and copyright is gone" reading of Section 15(2) is not what the law or the Supreme Court's own test actually says.

There is also a separate, practical catch that exists whether or not Section 15(2) applies to any given drawing. Even where copyright clearly survives, winning an infringement claim means proving the other side actually copied the expression in your drawing rather than independently building the same functional part the same obvious way, which is a genuinely hard case to make for a part with only one sensible way to machine it. That is a reason the confidentiality agreement below still matters regardless of how the Section 15(2) question eventually gets decided for any given drawing, not a reason to assume copyright is unreliable.

None of this makes Section 15(2) irrelevant. It still exists to push anyone who wants long-term protection on a genuinely eye-catching, mass-produced shape toward registering a design instead of leaning on copyright indefinitely. It just means the fifty-unit number is not a countdown timer on every manufacturing drawing, and whether it applies to any specific part is a real legal question, not a foregone conclusion in either direction.

What design registration actually buys you, and why most buyers skip it

If a part has a genuine visual design element, a distinctive housing shape, a decorative surface, an ornamental feature that is not required for the part to function, registering it under the Designs Act is real, enforceable protection. It lasts ten years, extendable to fifteen.

The catch is cost, timing and scope. Registration takes time and money for every design, and it protects only the visual element, never the underlying engineering. For a purely functional part with no separable "look," design registration will not be the practical answer, because there is nothing visually distinctive to register in the first place, not because of the effort or cost involved.

If a part does have a genuine visual element worth registering, sequence matters. India's Designs Act treats public disclosure before filing as grounds to refuse registration, the design has to still be new when the application goes in. A disclosure made under a signed confidentiality agreement is a different, safer category, since the recipient is under an obligation to keep it secret. But posting it publicly, showing it at an unrestricted trade event or sending it out with no confidentiality terms in place before you file can cost you the registration itself. If registration might matter, check the filing question before any disclosure that is not covered by an agreement.

India has no dedicated trade secret law. That is not the gap it sounds like.

Unlike some countries, India has no standalone statute that defines and protects trade secrets. The 22nd Law Commission of India recommended one in a March 2024 report, along with a draft bill. As of this writing in 2026, that bill has not been introduced in Parliament and is not law.

This sounds like a real gap, and buyers researching it online usually stop right there, alarmed. It is worth finishing the picture.

Confidential information in India is protected through two other routes that already work today. The first is contract law, specifically the Indian Contract Act, 1872. Section 27 of that Act voids any agreement that stops someone from carrying on a lawful trade or profession. That sounds like it would kill an NDA. It does not. Indian courts have consistently drawn a line between a clause that stops someone from working or competing at all, which fails under Section 27, and a clause that only stops someone from disclosing or misusing specific confidential information while they keep working normally, which courts have repeatedly upheld. A confidentiality clause is not a restraint on trade. It restrains one specific act, disclosure, not the trade itself.

The second route is the equitable doctrine of breach of confidence, a common law principle Indian courts apply independent of any written contract, when information was shared under circumstances that carried an obvious expectation of confidence.

Put together, this means that for most functional manufacturing parts, the practical protection has less to do with registering anything and more to do with controlling how the drawing is shared, used and disclosed, through a signed agreement and the remedies behind it.

What those remedies actually look like

If a confidentiality agreement is breached, the two remedies that matter most in practice are an injunction and damages. Courts can grant an injunction, an order stopping further use or disclosure, and a clearly written injunctive relief clause improves the odds and speed of getting one, though exactly how fast depends on the facts and the court, not a fixed timeline. Separately, Section 73 of the Contract Act lets the wronged party claim compensation for loss that either arose naturally from the breach or was something both sides could reasonably have expected when they signed, excluding anything too remote or indirect. Working out and proving that figure is often genuinely difficult in practice, which is one reason the injunction, stopping the harm before it compounds, tends to matter more than the damages claim in most real disputes. Buyers researching "India IP protection" mostly find general patent and copyright explainers, not this practical picture.

Signs your current process leaves this gap open

A quick self-check before the practical steps below. If several of these are true, your actual exposure is probably higher than you think, even with factories you already trust.

• You have sent a full technical drawing before any written confidentiality agreement was signed, because the factory needed it to quote.
• Your standard NDA template was written for a different context, like an employee or an investor, and never reviewed for a manufacturing relationship specifically.
• Your agreement does not name what happens if the factory subcontracts a step to a shop you have never dealt with directly.
• You could not say, right now, which governing law and which court your current supplier agreements actually point to.
• You have never asked whether your drawing includes a genuinely distinctive visual element worth registering separately from the confidentiality terms.
• Nobody on your team has ever actually read the confidentiality clause in your standard supplier agreement, only assumed it exists.

A practical sequence for a new supplier relationship

Before any drawing moves. Get a signed confidentiality agreement in place first, even a short one, before a single technical file leaves your inbox. A quote can usually proceed on a general description and rough dimensions. Full tolerances, materials and assembly detail can wait for the signed agreement.

Write the agreement to survive a Section 27 challenge. Keep it narrow and specific. Name the exact information covered, not "all business information." Restrict what it stops the other side from doing to disclosure and misuse, never from continuing to operate their own business or work with other customers. A broad clause dressed up as an NDA is more likely to be read as an unenforceable restraint of trade than a narrow one.

State what the supplier may use the drawing for, not just what they cannot disclose. Most people call this an NDA, but disclosure and use are two separate promises. An agreement that only says "do not disclose this drawing" is not the same as one that says "you may use this drawing only to quote, manufacture, inspect and package this order for me." Without that second sentence, a supplier who never leaks the file to anyone could still use it to quote a similar part for a different customer and technically keep the confidentiality promise intact. This is not just a theoretical concern. In a 2025 Telangana High Court case, a court restrained a contractor from sharing an industrial partner's confidential drawings with third parties, limiting their use strictly to the operation, maintenance and spares purposes the original agreement actually permitted. Spell out the permitted purpose explicitly, a confidentiality and permitted-use agreement, not just a non-disclosure one.

Put an injunctive relief clause in plainly, not just a damages clause. The agreement earns its keep long before any breach, by defining permitted use, binding subcontractors and setting return terms. But if a breach does happen, proving and quantifying loss under Section 73 is genuinely hard, so an explicit injunctive relief clause matters for preserving your ability to seek fast relief. Make sure the agreement actually says so.

Ask about subcontracting before you sign, not after. A drawing shared with the factory you vetted can still end up at a second shop for a specialised step. Extend the confidentiality obligation explicitly to any subcontractor the factory brings in.

Release detail in stages. Rough dimensions and general description for a quote. Full tolerances and process detail only after the agreement is signed and the relationship is confirmed. A buyer who never has to hand over the complete file before both sides are committed has less exposed at any single point.

If the supplier will modify your drawing, decide who owns the result before they start. A shop that changes a tolerance, reworks a fixture design or proposes a better machining approach has created something new. A confidentiality agreement stops them disclosing it. It does not by itself decide whether that improvement belongs to you or to them. Say so explicitly in the agreement.

Address what happens to the file if the supplier does not win the order. A drawing sent to three shops for competing quotes leaves two full sets of files sitting somewhere after you pick a winner. Ask the losing suppliers to return or delete what they received, and get that confirmed in writing rather than just requested.

Track which revision each supplier actually has. A drawing sent out for competing quotes rarely stays frozen. One shop gets Rev B, a tolerance changes, the next round goes out as Rev C, and a losing supplier's copy never gets updated. That is a quality problem as much as an IP one, and deleting an email does not delete a file already saved on someone else's system. Record the part number and revision against every supplier who received it.

For a sensitive drawing, mark the copy you send. A simple label, the supplier's name, the revision and the purpose, something like "Confidential, RFQ only, Supplier B, Rev C," does not create any legal right by itself. It creates a record of exactly which copy went to which supplier, which makes a later investigation easier if a file turns up somewhere it should not, and it is a cheap habit for anything you would not want showing up in a competitor's hands.

Check whether anything about the part is genuinely registrable. Most functional parts are not. If a real visual or ornamental element exists, a separate design registration is worth the modest cost, on top of the confidentiality agreement, not instead of it.

One disclosure path buyers did not have five years ago: your own AI tools

Everything above is about what happens to the drawing once it reaches your supplier. There is a newer version of the same question that has nothing to do with India at all. If someone on your own team uploads the drawing, the RFQ, the BOM or the signed NDA itself into an AI tool to summarize it, compare supplier quotes or draft a response, that file has left your control again, just through a different door.

Treat it the same way you would treat handing the file to a new counterparty. Before uploading a confidential drawing to any AI tool, check whether that tool is approved for confidential business information, what happens to files and prompts after you submit them, who can access that data, and whether the provider retains it. An NDA with your Indian supplier says nothing about what your own team's AI workflow does with the same file.

What this does not mean

This is not a reason to assume every Indian manufacturer is a theft risk. A verified factory in an established cluster, machining parts for dozens of customers, generally has far more to lose from a reputation for leaking drawings than it has to gain from copying any single buyer's design. The step-by-step protocol above is about closing a real legal gap, not treating a normal sourcing relationship as adversarial from day one.

It also does not mean skipping the confidentiality agreement because "the law protects me anyway." Copyright, design and patent law all have real but narrower roles than most buyers assume, as the sections above cover. The agreement is not a formality sitting on top of stronger legal protection elsewhere. For most buyers sourcing a functional part, it is still the protection that is actually enforceable in practice.

A buyer who has already gone through a supplier verification checklist and settled who legally holds the contract and the risk has closed two real gaps. This is the third one, and it closes with a signed agreement before the drawing moves, not after.

See Also

• How to Write RFQ to get Serious Supplier Responses
• Payment Protection For First Order
• Buyer Reference Check Script for Industrial Suppliers
• Should-Cost Model - Beyond the Unit Price