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IIT-KGP law school launches legal aid and IP facilitation cell

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Press Trust of India Kharagpur (WB)
Last Updated : Feb 14 2018 | 9:25 PM IST
The Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law (RGSOIPL) here, has started an intellectual property (IP) facilitation cell recently, to provide legal service to the needy and enable legal literacy.
The faculty and students of the school will run legal aid and IP facilitation camps on Saturdays in order to provide assistance to whoever may require it, institute officials said.
"Access to legal aid is still a problem in Indian society, especially in rural areas. In many cases, a legal step is simple but people hesitate to take it," Professor Padmavati M, Dean of the IIT-Kharagpur Law School said.
In many cases, good legal advice can lead to expedite solutions, she said.
"Sometimes it is even necessary to avoid long legal wrangles and take immediate action," she said.
In marital cases, too, timely legal advice may lead to early resolution, she said.

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"When we enable the mechanism of legal aid to the village sarpanch or panchayat leader - peoples' first level of contact with authority - the people are already enabled. This is the reason why the legal aid cells plan of spreading legal literacy is so important," she said.
The cell will also provide assistance on cyber issues, assist in the protection of indigenous crafts and other areas where its expertise in intellectual property rights needed, she said.
A significant activity of the cell would be to provide intellectual property rights (IPR) protection service, especially where its expertise is required in building a case for GI and registering it, she added.
Geographical indication (GI) is a unique case which is directly related not just to one artisan but to the communities that use local resources for sustenance of livelihoods, the professor said.
Apart from this, the law school has plans to create a group of paralegal volunteers who will work with the district legal services.
Professor Padmavati hoped that the cell would eventually go online to provide legal assistance to a larger number of people.
Justice Aniruddha Bose, Judge, Calcutta High Court and Executive Chairman, West Bengal Legal Services, inaugurated the cell earlier this month.
The Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law (RGSOIPL) in IIT-Kharagpur is a unique law school that was set up in 2006 with the help of a distinguished alumnus Vinod Gupta to groom the scientists and engineers into intellectual property lawyers.
The law school offers a three-year LLB program with specialisation in intellectual property law (IPL) recognised by the Bar Council of India, the LLM program in various disciplines of law and a doctoral program.

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First Published: Feb 14 2018 | 9:25 PM IST

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