Post the creation of the National IPR Policy in May 2016, a series of road shows were conducted in June – July 2016 by the Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP). These roadshows were conducted to create awareness about the Intellectual Property Rights as per the objectives of the National IPR Policy.
The Policy may be accessed by clicking here.
The DIPP invited several industry bodies, associations etc. to provide their comments on the outreach program. In a meeting held on August 23, 2016 at DIPP, several stakeholders met the officials of the DIPP and provided their comments on how to further increase awareness on IPR issues.
Among others, there were suggestions that the Government initiate programs for school children to inculcate awareness at an early stage; strengthening the entire ecosystem by capacity building at judiciary, police, administration etc.; Ph.D. programs on the technical side provide a refresher course on IPR / patent search; for non-technical Ph.D. programs refresher courses on copyright in thesis etc.; ensuring focus on quality rather than quantity given the experience of other countries so that invalid IPRs do not clog the systems, etc.
Those of our readers who wish to send in comments to the DIPP on further creating awareness may send their suggestions directly to: cipam-dipp[at]gov.in
An important initiative in the IPR policy has been to spread the IP Offices – mainly the patent offices across the country. As per the existing law, there are to be only four Patent Offices (mumbai, chennai, kolkata and delhi) in the country i.e. four jurisdictions. But, there is no bar on establishing ‘sub-offices’, if it is in the national interest. So, the CGPDTM took a unique call of setting up two sub-offices – at Nagpur and Ahmedabad – under the Mumbai Patent Office. Grapevine is, the PMO is also interested in this project, and our PM wants to setup these secondary offices in other cities as well.
Though some high ranking patent officials do not want this project to succeed – may be because of ‘crab mentality’ or some misgivings – one cannot be sure, we hope that wisdom of CGPDTM prevails and this project goes through.