The Doctrine of Exhaustion of Rights (also called the First Sale Doctrine) in Intellectual Property law means:

Solution

The Doctrine of Exhaustion (or First Sale Doctrine) provides that once the IP owner, or someone with their authorisation, places a protected product into the market through the first authorised sale, the IP owner's rights in that specific physical copy of the product are exhausted. This means the purchaser can freely resell, lend, rent, or dispose of that specific item without needing further permission from the IP owner. Exhaustion can operate at three levels: (i) National Exhaustion rights exhaust only within that country, and parallel imports are prohibited; (ii) Regional Exhaustion rights exhaust within a group of countries (e.g., European Union); and (iii) International Exhaustion rights exhaust globally upon first authorised sale anywhere. India generally follows international exhaustion in trademark law and national exhaustion in patent law. For example, once a book is lawfully purchased, the buyer may resell it but the doctrine does not allow the buyer to make photocopies of the book, as that is a reproduction right which is never exhausted.