Indian entities have been filing nearly 20% of Indian patent applications for past 3 decades and this trend has been pretty consistent irrespective of the technology areas they are working on. Indian entities are also known as copycats and frequently accused of plagiarism. It is perfectly natural that if they continue doing what they had been doing for past 7 decades, they will continue getting what they had been getting for past 7 decades.
Ever since India became independent, there had been a reconstruction of India by building up modern temples of learning such as IITs, DRDO, ICAR, CSIR laboratories and several universities in government sector besides public sector units such as IOCL, BHEL, SAIL, NTPC, ONGC besides MSMEs and other larger units in private sector such as Reliance group of industries.
Private sector has also witnessed the mushrooming of several engineering colleges, medical colleges and management colleges during past 3 decades to cater to the demands of engineers, medical and management professionals that were largely prepared by diverting them from the science and technology mainstreams. Even, non-Indian entities have set up nearly 1000 R&D Centers employing nearly 3 lacs qualified Indian scientists and technocrats during the same.
Whereas Indian academic institutions function as knowledge power house, quite a large number of such qualified scientists and technocrats are employed by Indian industries to develop newer products and processes. Indian entities comprising of academia and industries create IP at their laboratories. However, their IP creation has not been at a satisfactory pace considering the investments made in these modern temples of learning when one moves ahead to compare their output with respect to those by the non-Indian entities.
It is strongly suspected that Indian entities do not employ IP professionals on their rolls. With the result, inventors are required to do the drafting of patent applications and their uncertain availability at the time of prosecution results in the abandonment of applications. Indian entities have not set up any IP cell at their premises. They do not have any internal mechanism to supervise the quality of deliverables by the IP firms that have been outsourced the IP work. Indian entities do not have any internal capability to screen the publications for the presence of any invention or plagiarism.
If 20% of Indian patent applications are filed by Indian entities, then the balance 80% of Indian patent applications are filed by non-Indian entities that have been building their home in India since the era of globalization set in India in 1990s. It is therefore obvious that brain drain has been happening not only to developed nations such as USA or Europe but also to developed laboratories within India itself. However, such massive exodus of S&T manpower to non-Indian entities certainly ensures that Indian entities are continuously kept deprived of this manpower. That also puts constraint on the Indian entities to work out their research projects with whatever manpower is available with them. With the result, the inventors working with Indian entities might be overworking leading to enhanced stress levels for them and thereby at reduced productivity levels.
Indian IP firms largely depend on the work they receive from non-Indian entities. The money is there but the work they happen to receive is largely routine in nature e.g. filing of national phase/ convention applications and their prosecution, trademark filing and occasional litigations. There exist several kind of IP firms that do not like to communicate with one another. With the result, it is quite likely that they do not understand the scope of IP work that Indian entities are engaged in. Indian IP firms may therefore be shy in approaching the Indian entities for the IP work.
As such, Indian IP firms comprise of IP firms (largely dealing with filing and prosecutions), KPOs (largely working on prior art search and drafting), law firms (largely working on litigations, copyrights and trademark related issues), innovation firms (largely dealing with tools such as TRIZ, ideation, etc. in spotting the inventions, scenario writing, etc), database vendors, IT firms (dealing with invention management tools), etc.
We therefore desire that Indian IP firms come forward and help us by their structured presentations on specially chosen aspects. As the conference will be organized in four sessions, we would like to discuss two aspects in a single session. Following aspects have been identified by us:
(1) IP policy including reward scheme for inventors and employment of IP professionals by Indian entities, IP audit, white space analysis/ technology landscaping and determination of research directions by Indian entities:
Government of India has released its National IPR Policy nearly an year ago. Taking a cue from it, it is expected that Indian entities will also develop their IP policy with a view to encourage the creation of IP followed by their exploitation. That would involve handling of IP assets by the IP professionals employed by the Indian entities. Further, introduction of reward scheme for the inventors and innovators will accelerate the process of creation and exploitation of IP. IP audit will ensure identification of IPs that are owned and borrowed by the Indian entities. Further, it will reduce the usage of stolen IPs by the Indian entities.
By and large, Indian entities in academia prefer to employ their faculty (the chief inventors) who have had prior exposure in developed nations. These inventors are hardly expected to have any knowledge of the local, regional and national needs of the country. Similarly, inventors in industries may not be adequately qualified/ experienced to develop the newer products and processes. In fact, the inventors prefer to work in their own areas of specializations. Under the circumstances, it may be advisable to take the help of a KPO firm that can determine the research directions in a particular technology area by conducting white space analysis. That will help the inventors avoid duplication of research efforts in a given technology area.
(2) enhancing pace of creating invention disclosures through processes such as ideation, TRIZ and patentability assessments of created invention disclosures, design around exercises on rejected applications, expired or abandoned patents:
This indeed is a grey area not appreciated even by IP firms. However, there could be firms like Crafitti Consulting that are engaged in this kind of activity with several Indian entities in FMCG, electronics, automotive, IT sectors etc.
(3) filing and prosecution of Indian and PCT patent applications with focus on preparation of Indian patent application based on the invention disclosure prepared by the inventors, submission of pre-grant/ third party/ post- grant observations and attending to the maintenance of granted patents
(4) filing of national phase applications and prosecutions in different nations through their foreign associates with focus on selection of foreign associates as well as handling maintenance of patent applications/ granted patents
(5) copyright issues including plagiarism, design thefts by fabricators and trademarks violations including counterfeiting and piracy
(6) agreements of different kinds including issues such as indemnifications, FTO, invalidations, IP insurance, implications of arbitrations and governing law
(7) IP watch, employee/ licensee watch, enforcements and commercializations including valuations and royalty determinations and experiences through auction sites such as pre-pat auction
(8) threat from non- practising entities, threat from non-Indian entities and handling litigations and conflict of interest issues
We are not very sure if the Indian IP firms will indeed be able to prepare the required presentation materials. The presentation materials will therefore be screened by us so as to select the best presentation material. And, if any help is required, the same will be provided.
Our aim is to get the Indian entities interested in IP. And if they get interested, we expect an explosion of opportunities for the employment of IP professionals as well as the IP work from their premises.
