Indian Patent Office to create awareness programme for new IPR policy

The Indian Patent Office plans to put in place a detailed annual plan in consultation with all stakeholders to spread awareness about the new Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) policy by conducting workshops and seminars in schools, universities and other such institutions.

“As part of awareness program, we as Indian Intellectual Property office are interacting with all possible stakeholders and working out a detailed programme so that we may conduct workshops in schools, colleges, universities, seminars together with industry and academia and specific programs for specific industries like SMEs and certain other specialised fields,” said O P Gupta, Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trademarks, at an Assocham event held in New Delhi on Friday. 

He added, “The idea is to spread awareness, as more and more people become aware, it serves our purpose. We simultaneously try to promote and encourage people to take up programs on their own and involve larger communities whereby we involve agriculturists, farmers and producers on a larger scale.”

Talking about the implementation in terms of enforcement aspect of IPR, Gupta said, “The IPR policy does talk about that, those steps are being taken, toolkits are being prepared which will circulated to various police stations and other law enforcement agencies.”

Highlighting that all commercial courts are also now listening to all IPR related matters, he said, “With law universities and judiciary, we are already conducting training programs in different places. They are also part of the outreach programs.”

According to Gupta, the basic idea of IPR policy is to provide an ecosystem which encourages individuals and corporate entities to take risk by putting in their efforts, money, labour so that they also derive reasonable benefits out of their own efforts. “But the underlined larger focus still is that all this has to benefit to the society as a whole and India in particular,” he said.

While there is a need to foster an ecosystem to promote research and innovations, for wider success, experts believe, people will have to inculcate this as part of their culture.

Stating that innovation and protection are two different aspects of the IP regime, Gupta said. “When you talk about creation and innovation, it is more about kind of inculcating a culture, providing protection is in terms of seeking balance between both these aspects. The main objective of IPR policy is actually to inculcate generative aspect of it and there is certainly not the main thrust on protection. The idea is that whosoever is seeking IP protection in India, should get it in a reasonable period of time without much problems and that kind of facilitation regime in terms of IP administration and management will be and should be provided through this policy.”

He added that it is not that number of filings that need to go up necessarily but whosoever seeks protection should get it in specified timeframe with minimum problems/difficulties is the main objective of the IPR policy.

Stating that promotion of IPR is imperative to bring equilibrium between knowledge and wealth creation, Dr H Purushotham, chairman and managing director (CMD), National Research Development Corporation (NRDC), said, “Promotion of IPR is imperative to bring equilibrium between knowledge and wealth creation. It is imperative to introduce IPR as a subject in schools and colleges and make it compulsory to promote its awareness. It is also significant to address the issue of poor patent filing in India to position it as a top innovative nation in the world.”

He also suggested the Indian Patent Office to strengthen the existing systems and mechanisms vis-a-vis IPR rather than bring up new ones to avoid duplication of efforts.