The Economic Times recently reported that Delhi University would soon be having its own IP policy in place. The IP policy would seek to address and clarify, inter alia, the issues pertaining to patentability of the research undertaken by DU staff and students, registration of copyright and trademark by DU and the question of ownership of the intellectual property.
The Intellectual Property Rights Cell at Delhi University, established in the year 2008, aims at helping the students and faculty manage their intellectual property rights and also to make use of their rights commercially. The Cell which had been earlier headed by the Dean of Research, is now headed by the IPR Chair at DU, which was constituted by the Ministry of Human Resource and Development earlier this year.
In September, Delhi University had framed certain guidelines for “Intellectual Property protection and licensing” and “collaborative research with industry participation.”
Dr. Rekha Chaturvedi, the MHRD IPR Chair Professor at DU, lamented that without a proper IP policy, it is indeed difficult for researchers to deal with the legal and commercial issues arising out of their intellectual property rights.
Acknowledging that registration of patents is a costly affair, Dr. Chaturvedi also said that DU would try to get funds for filing the patent from DBT, NRDC and DST (TIFAC).
The Cell would be working in collaboration with attorneys on IP matters.
Currently, the IPR Chair at Delhi University has undertaken two research projects on compulsory licensing and section 3(d) of The Patents Act 1970, as part of its obligation to carry out research on various IP issues.
In addition to formulating an IP policy, the IPR Cell would also be conducting awareness programmes at various Delhi University colleges; as a step towards this, an IPR workshop would be conducted by Delhi University on 2nd November in association with Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and Indian Patent Office.
As per the university statistics, 168 patents are registered by Delhi University, 71 patents are patents under prosecution, 35 patents have been granted and 52 patent applications have lapsed.
