Patent Drive 2016 Launch

Patent Drive 2016 was formally launched on 29th Sept., 2016 evening. The function was held at S. N. Bose Auditorium, IIT Kharagpur. The Technology Transfer Group (TTG) students were in charge of the event#. IPR experts and Domain experts who play an important role in handholding the inventors from invention disclosure to patent filing were backing up the young team. Director, IIT Kharagpur who could not be present due to an emergency meeting at Delhi sent good wishes to the Patent Drive team for the launch event.

The program started at 6:30 PM. After TTG welcome, Dean (Continuing Education) addressed the audience on behalf of the institute explaining the importance of IP protection, commercialization and how IP contributes to overall assessment of the institute. Following this, the TTG team explained the in-house Patent Portal (Link) to the inventors. They showed new feature of the portal for this edition of the drive that facilitates speedier review. It included an innovative approach to help patent search and that feature is being further improved. The modified Invention Disclosure Form / Abstract can be downloaded from here (PDF, Word). The team explained the new Geographical Indications (G.I.) Portal of the institute in connection with newly launched G.I. Drive of last convocation day (GI Portal Link).

The major attraction of the evening was the guest-talk from Prof. Ganesh S Hingmire, Chairman, Great Mission Group Consultancy, Pune. He is the winner of National IP Award in G.I. category for two consecutive years 2015, 2016. He came with his experience of registering 19 G.I.s out of which 17 are Agri. GIs. His work on another 9 Agri. GI applications is waiting for registration. He had conducted hundreds of small group meetings of farmers to create awareness on GI and its benefits and 12 awareness seminars for the Office of the Controller of Patents. He held the audience captive by explaining how G.I. gives community the IP right in contrast to Patent right being enjoyed by an individual and how G.I. can help propel economic growth for the community.

After a short tea-break at 8:00 PM, the Q & A session started at 8:15 PM. While the initial questions were related to G.I., soon it widened to consider issues related to Patenting and the special aspects of patent drive, commercialization benefit sharing with inventors etc. The session ended at 9:00 PM when there were still queries which the Patent Drive team are to take up offline, on a one to one basis.

We share two videos of this launch function, the address by Prof. Hingmire and the Q & A session for the benefit of the inventors. Some photos from the launch function follow.

#Patent Drive 2016 launch is supported by MHRD IPR Chair Professor grant.

IPR Round Table

In a new study initiated by IPR Office, IIT Kharagpur in the current year, feasibility of a new model of IP prosecution system is debated that can fast-track enforcement of IP with reduction of time and steps. IP is time-stamped and the protection is available for a finite period only. A slow trial on IP litigation is costly on various counts. This raises concerns for innovators without deep-pocket like that from academia and also for those who wants certainty of outcome in a finite time to go for IP based investment in our country. This feasibility study project is funded by UK Intellectual Patent Office (IPO). The idea of this study came when IIT Kharagpur IPR team had an interaction with UK IPO team members on 2nd June, 2015 at British Deputy High Commission, Kolkta. 

The first round table on this study took place on April 02, 106 at Conference Room of IIT Khragpur Kolkata Extension Centre. It was attrended by Hon'ble Justice Prabha Sridevan, Former Judge Madras High court and Chairman IPAB; Dr. V.C. Vivekanandan, MHRD IPR Chair Professor, NALSAR University of Law; Prof. V.K. Unni, Associate Professor at the Public Policy and Management Group of IIM Calcutta; Mr. S. Majumder, Partner, S. Majumder& Co. Leading IP attorney; Mr. .K.Chakraborty, Partner, MKC & Associate Leading IP attorney; Mr. Gautam Banerjee, Principal Associate Khaitan& Co. IP attorney; Mr. Sudipta Ghosh, Head-IP Management, Wipro Technologies Ltd; Mr. Pranay Agarwal, Consultant - Intellectual Property Rights & Consulting Attorney for Commonwealth at Longbow Legal Services; Mr. Debrabata Das, IP Maangement Team, CTS; Representative from CMERI; faculty and research students of IIT Kharagpur. Opinions of experts who could not attend the round table physically are made available through emails. 

The half-day round table showed emergence of three alternative approaches - one of which requires major intervention for which process appears to be complicated, second one requires minor intervention but still is an intervention and the third is having certain structural and functional changes in the existing system for which the process may not be as complicated. We are on our way to consolidate the thoughts and ideas of the discussion.

Launch of IP Drive 2014

The new edition of Intellectual Property Drive is launched on March 12, 2014 at S. N. Bose Auditorium of IIT Kharagpur.

Dean, Sponsored Research and Industrial Consultancy (SRIC), IIT Kharagpur welcomed all and shared what has been achieved in the first edition of the drive. He attributed it to team work where student team of Technology Transfer Group (TTG) and Rajib Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law (RGSoIPL) played important role. He introduced key faculty members of this drive.

Four faculty from Law School (RGSoIPL):
Prof. S. Matilal, Prof. M. Padmavati, Prof. K. D. Raju, and Prof. T. K. Bandopadhyaya (Jt. faculty: Metallurgical and Material Engineering)

Four faculty from Science and Engineering:
Prof. Arnab Roy, Aerospace, Prof. C. R. Raj, Chemistry, Prof. S. Mukhopadhyaya, Electronics & ECE, Prof. S. Dhara, School of Medical Science & Technology (SMST) 

Prof. Goutam Saha, Professor-in-Charge, IPR & IR is coordinating  the drive with due support from Prof. K. Bibhute, Dean, RGSoIPL, MHRD IPR Chair Professor. 

Director, IIT Kharagpur in his address explained the significance of such drive in a technology institute like IIT Kharagpur and motivated the research community towards patenting. He announced that patent filing cost in India by institute researchers will be fully borne by institute. He encouraged all to achieve 100 provisional patent filing mark quicker than previous drive.

TTG students briefly explained the IP portal (www.ipportal-iitkgp.in) developed to streamline the abstract submission, evaluation and feedback through a paperless process. It is developed under the guidance of law school experts to take care of the legal / security issue. Researchers who are already aware of patent documentation can directly submit complete specification at IPR & IR Office in the usual channel.

Mr. T. Chandrasekhar, Director & Head of PFC, TIFAC, one of the guests of the occasion wished patenting to be a part of curricular project to accelerate the internalization process and emphasized on quality of the patent. Mr. Anil K Jagalur, Head, IPS of Philips Bangalore spoke about the economic side of the patenting and how industry looks at it.

After tea-break, the interactive Q & A session started and it went on for about an hour. Doubts of research faculty and students were addressed by a panel that comprised of two guest experts and two law school faculty.

Here are few videos of the event taken from SRIC IIT Kharagpur Youtube Channel http://www.youtube.com/user/IITkgpSRIC

Opening and closing of the first session (includes welcome address by Dean, SRIC): Video Link 1
Address by Director, IIT Kharagpur: Video Link 2
Address by Director and Head, PFC, TIFAC: Video Link 3
Q & A Session - Part A: Video Link 4
Q & A Session - Part B: Video Link 5
Q & A Session - Part C: Video Link 6
(Head, IPS, Philips requested to share his talk through IIT Kharagpur's internal server.)