Patent boom

CAREER OPTION: There's a soaring demand for Intellectual Property experts in the patent regime.

Intellectual property (IP) education is gaining prominence with high-profile educational institutions like IITs and science universities including IP courses as part of their curriculum.

And even though the techno-legal curriculum is still to be a part of formal education in the country, academic institutions in the public and private sectors are lapping it up.

The Mumbai-based Institute of Intellectual Property Studies (IIPS) was the first among private sector institutions to offer IP education for management students and working professionals.

Public sector institutions that are in the process of commencing regular IP courses by creating in-house and visiting faculties, include IIT-Kharagpur, National Law School in Hyderabad (NALSAR) and the Universities of Allahabad and Pune.

IP studies give an overview of basic principles relating to Indian Patent Act, prior art searching, drafting, filing, opposition, infringement principles, PCT filing, international patents litigation, issues and risks in exploiting patents and patent strategy.

While the existing annual post-graduate courses in IP cost Rs 1 lakh, a four-month certificate course from a private institution would cost Rs 25,000-50,000 in private institutions.

There's a huge demand of IP professionals in the new patent regime under Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) and related amendments in the country's trade and commerce law.

Major pharmaceutical and automobile companies with a research bias, are laying emphasis on creating strong IP departments both in-house and consultancy basis.

But they have limited options such as hiring an independent law firm which has expertise in IP-related matters or creating one in-house by either enhancing the existing team with continues education or recruiting freshers who have passed out from the specialised academic institutions.

The country's requirement of IP professionals in the next five years is estimated to be around 2,000, mainly as patent examiners in all the four Patent Offices in the country, patent attorneys to handle the increasing patent litigations, patent agents to represent clients for patent filing, hearing, opposition,and consultants and professionals in the corporate patent cells -- both in public and private sectors. Since these highly-paid career opportunities are growing, the demand for a dedicated IP and patent law course admission is shooting up.

R Saha, advisor, Department of Science & Technology, Ministry of Human Resources Development (HRD), has already proposed to have dedicated courses in IP and patent law in all IITs across the country.

"The DST has initiated on the job training program for its employees in IP and patents as this will help creating an IP awareness among the staff members, which is an essential requirement in the science and technology department today," he says.

The country's four patent offices located at New Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai would need a total number of at least 400 patent examiners, says Prabudha Ganguli, chief executive officer, Vision-IPR, a leading IPR consultancy firms in India, and an Adjunct Professor in the Rajeev Gandhi School of Intellectual Property at IIT Kharagpur.

"IP education is very much the need of the hour in the country. Since it is a techno-legal subject, the lawyers with a conventional law background cannot service this sector as it needs better understanding of science and technology. Hence, a new branch of education needs to be evolved at the Universities. At the same time, the most challenging issue in the current scenario is the availability of right faculty," Ganguli adds.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Human Resources and Development, had last year proposed to create exclusive IP chair in five leading universities in the country to meet the heavy requirement of patent professionals.

The centre's proposal was to commence IP courses in universities including Pune, Allahabad, Bombay and the Science University of Cochin.