Workshop organised on patents, IPR in Rajkot

A first of its kind workshop on Patent and Intellectual Proprietary Rights (IPR) titled 'Current Drug Patent Regime' of Saurashtra-Kutch region was jointly organised by S J Thakkar Pharmacy College and Gujarat Council of Science and Technology (GUJCOST) at Rajkot on Sunday.

More than 600 delegates attended the educative session. Eminent speakers from corporate and academic sectors shared their views and expertise on a competitive edge. They explaining the necessity of know how patenting of products.

The speakers highlighted the importance of India and Gujarat as an emerging destination on global grounds in areas of Pharmaceuticals and Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) in allied areas of Patent and IPR.

Jasu Pari, chairman of S J Thakkar Pharmacy College, said, "Prime objective of the seminar was to educate students on the existing Patent procedures and protocol making them aware of the practical legislature and judicial intricacies, apart from just letting them associate with theories."

Talking on the need of IPR and Patent in India, Padmin Buch, chief consultant of Gujarat Industrial and Technical Consultancy Organisation (GITCO), said, "India's pharmaceutical market is estimated at around Rs 355 billion for 2004-05, registering 16 per cent growth over the previous year. This makes us the fourth largest player in the league, globally.

Ranbaxy alone registered annual turnover of around Rs 450 billion US $; Pfizer's viagra drug alone was sold at Rs 411 billion US$ in just three months, which indicate that patented product quarterly sales is almost equivalent to the annual turnover of any Indian pharma company."

India and Gujarat are now emerging as one of the global destinations for R&D and contract management outsourcing hub, so without knowledge of Patent and IPR we would not be in a positions to service the global markets and demands, he added.

Padmin said, "Every year there are 8,000 pharma graduates and 400 PhD's churned out from 500 educational institutes and 1,500 research institutes across the country but like China, there are no Patent institutes in India. China has atleast 5,000 Patent institutes providing education on Patent and IPR."

Dr Bipin Pandey of Zydus Research Centre said, "In 1980, there were 66,000 patents delivered, in 2000 it was 1,76,000 and in 2002 it was 1,86,000. Now every week 3,500 patents are delivered, so its high time that we educate our experts on this requirement to tap the global pharmaceutical business."