SRIC – The KGP Chronicle

Intellectual Property is the Possession of a Curious Mind – Celebrating the World Intellectual Property Day 2024 at IIT Kharagpur

On the occasion of the World Intellectual Property Day, the Intellectual Property (IP) Cell of the Office of Sponsored Research and Industrial Consultancy (SRIC), IIT Kharagpur organized a programme on Intellectual Property in Ben Gupta Auditorium of the Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law (RGSOIPL) on 26^th April, 2024. The programme accentuates the importance of IP in modern science and transformational technological pursuits and was inaugurated by Prof. V K Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur, in attendance by a large number of students, research scholars faculty and staff members.

The theme of The World IP Day 2024 was to align the inventions towards attaining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). IIT Kharagpur has already taken a leap towards aligning with SDGs and has published the Sustainability Policy of the Institute in the Website. The Institute has also taken initiatives towards directing the innovations towards attainment of the SDGs for shaping our future together with the Intellectual Property.

In the opening address, Prof. Santanu Dhara, Associate Dean R&D and Professor In-Charge of Intellectual Property Rights (PIC-IPR), talked about the genesis and history of the IPR and introduced its basic aspects. He also touched upon the various IPR and patent filing activities of IIT Kharagpur and urged the faculty, students and scholars to secure their IPR by filing patents.

Prof. Rintu Banerjee, Dean R&D, IIT Kharagpur

Prof. Rintu Banerjee, Dean R&D, presented the record of annual patent filing at IIT Kharagpur which showed a positive trend over the last few years. Prof. Banerjee also compared the details of patents filed and granted from IIT Kharagpur with those from the other top academic institutions in India and the world. Overall, Prof. Banerjee emphasized on the importance of filing patents for institutional and national development and called the IIT Kharagpur community to come forward and make the endeavour of ‘100 patents in 100 hours’ successful. Prof. Banerjee also shared some of the administrative and academic measures the institute is going to implement for promoting the IP drive.

Prof. V K Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur

In the Chairman’s speech, Prof. V K Tewari delivered a fascinating and encouraging lecture covering the journey of patent filing at IIT Kharagpur. It is wonderful to hear that back in 1982 Prof. Tewari visited the patent office in Kolkata every day for around two weeks to learn the rules and regulations of patent filing following the advice of his M.Tech supervisor, which resulted in the filing of the first patent from this institute. Prof. Tewari continued his drive and owned as many as twenty patents throughout his academic journey. Prof. Tewari particularly focused on the importance of securing IP and translating that to successful start-ups to foster the country’s economy and generate employment.

There were two successive lectures first by Prof. Padmavati Machikanti from RGSOIPL on the overview of different forms of IP and subsequently by Prof. Tapas Kumar Bandyopadhyay, Professor of the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, on the patenting aspects in Indian context. Prof. Banerjee also touched upon how technological research can benefit the rural economy through IPR.

Mr. Sumit Chatterjee, Legal Associate, SRIC, briefly mentioned the IP-related activities of SRIC

In the end, Prof. Banerjee and Prof. Dhara thanked the tremendous support extended by the IIT Kharagpur faculty members in performing a timely review of the proposals submitted for patent filing. The programme ended with a long Q&A session where Prof. Goutam Saha, former PIC of IPR, and Prof. Soumitra Paul, Head of the Mechanical Engineering Department, shared some of their opinion and suggestions to make the patent drive at IIT Kharagpur a more effective one. [Read : IIT Kharagpur calls for 100 Patents in 100 days]

Finally, in the vote of thanks Prof. Niharika Sahoo Bhattacharya acknowledged the Director, Dean R&D, Associate Dean R&D, the speakers and attendees for making the event successful. Special thanks was imparted to the Deans and all the faculty and staff members of the Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law for extending all support in organizing the event at their venue.

About WIPO

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is one of the 15 specialized agencies of the United Nations (UN). Pursuant to the 1967 Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO was created to promote and protect Intellectual Property (IP) across the world by cooperating with countries as well as international organizations. It began operations on 26 April 1970 when the convention entered into force. The current Director General is Singaporean Daren Tang, former head of the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore, who began his term on 1st October 2020.

WIPO’s activities include hosting forums to discuss and shape international IP rules and policies, providing global services that register and protect IP in different countries, resolving transboundary IP disputes, helping connect IP systems through uniform standards and infrastructure, and serving as a general reference database on all IP matters; this includes providing reports and statistics on the state of IP protection or innovation both globally and in specific countries. WIPO also works with governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and individuals to utilize IP for socio-economic development.

WIPO administers 26 international treaties that concern a wide variety of intellectual property issues, ranging from the protection of audiovisual works to establishing international patent classification. It is governed by the General Assembly and the Coordination Committee, which together set policy and serve as the main decision making bodies. The General Assembly also elects WIPO’s chief administrator, the Director General, currently Daren Tang of Singapore, who took office on 1st October 2020. WIPO is administered by a Secretariat that helps carry out its day-to-day activities.

Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, WIPO has external offices around the world, including in Algiers (Algeria); Rio de Janeiro (Brazil); Beijing (China), Tokyo (Japan); Abuja (Nigeria); Moscow (Russia); and Singapore (Singapore). Unlike most UN organizations, WIPO does not rely heavily on assessed or voluntary contributions from member states; 95 percent of its budget comes from fees related to its global services.

WIPO currently has 193 member states, including 190 UN member states and the Cook Islands, Holy See and Niue; Palestine has permanent observer status. The only non-members, among the countries recognized by the UN are the Federated States of Micronesia, Palau and South Sudan.

WIPO was formally created by the Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization, which entered into force on 26 April 1970. That date is commemorated annually as World Intellectual Property Day, which raises awareness of the importance of IP. Under Article 3 of this convention, WIPO seeks to promote the protection of intellectual property throughout the world. WIPO became a specialized agency of the UN in 1974. The Agreement between the United Nations and the World Intellectual Property Organization notes in Article 1 that WIPO is responsible:

“For promoting creative intellectual activity and for facilitating the transfer of technology related to industrial property to the developing countries in order to accelerate economic, social and cultural development, subject to the competence and responsibilities of the United Nations and its organs, particularly the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, as well as of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and of other agencies within the United Nations system.”

WIPO Development Agenda

In October 2004, WIPO agreed to adopt a proposal offered by Argentina and Brazil, the Proposal for the Establishment of a Development Agenda for WIPO —from the Geneva Declaration on the Future of the World Intellectual Property Organization. This proposal was well supported by developing countries. The agreed “WIPO Development Agenda” was the culmination of a long process of transformation for the organization from one that had historically been primarily aimed at protecting the interests of rightholders, to one that has increasingly incorporated the interests of other stakeholders in the international intellectual property system as well as integrating into the broader corpus of international law on human rights, environment and economic cooperation. In 2009, WIPO started drafting future treaties on intellectual property and genetic resources, traditional knowledge and folklore in relation with indigenous peoples and local communities.

In December 2011, WIPO published its first World Intellectual Property Report on the Changing Face of Innovation, the first such report of the new Office of the Chief Economist. WIPO is also a co-publisher of the Global Innovation Index.

Recent Events

WIPO, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the WTO launched on 11 April 2022 their new Trilateral COVID-19 Technical Assistance Platform. This new tool aims to help members and WTO accession candidates address their capacity building needs to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Platform provides members and accession candidates with a single contact form which they can use to reach out to the trilateral organizations.

World Intellectual Property Day

World Intellectual Property Day is observed annually on 26 April. The event was established by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in 2000 to raise awareness of how patents, copyright, trademarks and designs impact on daily life and to celebrate creativity, and the contribution made by creators and innovators to the development of economies and societies across the globe.World Intellectual Property Day is WIPO’s largest Intellectual Property (IP) public outreach campaign, instituted with the aim of establishing a set up framework for broader mobilization and awareness, to open up access to the promotional aspect of innovation and to recognize the achievements of promoters of intellectual property throughout the world.

Inputs by:Prof. Debalay Chakrabarti, Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, IIT Kharagpur
Email: debalay@metal.iitkgp.ac.in

Edited By: Poulami Mondal, Digital & Creative Media Executive (Creative Writer)
Email: poulami.mondal@iitkgp.ac.in, media@iitkgp.ac.in, Ph. No.: +91-3222-282007

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Three decades and counting!

“September 24^th 1982. I joined IIT Kharagpur as a Lower Division Clerk, giving in to my parents repeated requests. Today, after spending more than two-thirds of my life here, I do not regret the decision of my parents.

Rubber Technology Center had started the year before, in 1981. With no one to look into office work there, I was posted in that department as secretary to the HoD. My job profile consisted of mainly typing and maintaining office records. I stayed there from 1982 to 1987. With my promotion in 1987, I joined the Recruitment Section for a few days and was later transferred to the Deans’ Office. In 1989 I was posted in GATE office initially and then SRIC office. I served there for perhaps the longest time – from 1992 to 2006 – a good 14 years!

During my tenure at the SRIC office I was in the team of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system which happens to be synonymous with IIT Kharagpur. This system was started by Prof R. N. Banerjee. We, as a team, were thinking of introducing a new system of documentation. ERP was initially a project mode of SRIC headed by Prof Banerjee and we were involved in providing all information to this pilot project for its smooth functioning – details of accounting, administration and project monitoring – all had to be fed into the project, which was further programmed by Prof Banerjee with the help of his students.

Since then, ERP has become an integral part of IIT-KGP system and has been upgraded continuously since the time of its inception.

It was during my tenure that the modernization of the SRIC office took place. What you see today is a complete rehashed version of what it was during the early 90s. A lot of brainstorming went into how to give the office a modern, corporate look. Under the leadership of Prof Damodar Acharya, the then Dean SRIC and Dr D Gunasekaran, the then Principal Administrative Officer (who was also the Registrar of the Institute), we visited a few corporate offices in Kolkata, to get an idea of a modern office set-up. We also concentrated on the work culture and environment, alongside a new corporate model. Workstations, with individual desktops were introduced along with in-service training for employees and new recruits. This included computer training, soft skill development training, training in office administration, rules’ implementation training and others.

After I took charge of the Establishment Section in the year 2006, the Institute took a policy to modernize all its administrative section on the lines of SRIC office. This called for a lot of effort, which had to be put in so as to get the desired infrastructure of a corporate office within IIT.

The best part of my service here at IIT Kharagpur would be the purchase of a piece of land from the Government of West Bengal to set up a Research Park, which will be operational very soon. I was one of the signatories in those official papers back in 2008.

We worked as a team under the leadership of Prof Samir Kumar Lahiri, the then Deputy Director and Prof. Anil K. Bhowmick, the then Dean SRIC, during IIT Kharagpur’s Golden Jubilee in 2001. It was a year-long celebration with an exhibition at Science City Kolkata, for three consecutive days. That huge event saw the participation of all departments of IIT Kharagpur, few industries and several colleges in Kolkata.

The work culture of the Institute was always highly appreciated by the guests / visitors to the Institute. Maintaining and nurturing a positive attitude to work and towards colleagues, I feel, is the need of the hour. Good conduct always pays off and it costs nothing. What do you say?”

Image credit: Suman Sutradhar, Mr Animesh Kumar Naskar

Raising awareness

On August 2, 2019, IIT Kharagpur won recognition as ‘IP Campus of the Year (Non Legal) 2019” at the Intellectual Property Fest, an event organized by IP Promotion Outreach Foundation. The award acknowledged a campus that had made outstanding contribution to spreading awareness in the field of Intellectual Property law, rights and practice in the last academic year.

IPPOF is a knowledge-sharing and training arm in Intellectual Property with two decades of expertise in this domain and has been working on networking and implementation, and increasing awareness through seminars and online guidance sessions. It believes that the Micro, Small & Medium Enterprise sector needs to focus on commercialization of technology, promotion of innovative products through IPR protection, implementation, awareness and training.

IIT Kharagpur thinks similarly, although its focus does not devolve on any one sector. The Institute endeavours to promote and facilitate IP activities within the Institute and around the campus. It has taken several initiatives to build up community IP, raising awareness among IP creators and enforcement personnel. The Institute also connects inventors with industries and facilitates the transfer of technologies invented or created in the Institute. The Technology Transfer Group, a student run body, of IIT Kharagpur facilitates IP awareness activities.

Over the past year, there have been several workshops and interactive sessions held at IIT Kharapgur in order to give researchers and inventors a broad overview of patent laws in different countries, guide them on how to file patents and protect their IP. For example, an IPR workshop for students and researchers of the Departments of Computer Science and Engineering, Electrical Engineering, G.S. Sanyal School of Telecommunication, School of Medical Science and Technology and Centre for Educational Technology was conducted February 3, 2018, with distinguished patent advocate, Mr. Naren Thapetta, as the special guest speaker. In another session last August on “Roadmap for Patent Creation”, attended by more than a hundred researchers of the Institute, they were taught the fundamentals of patent creation and patent filing procedure in two sessions. There was a similar workshop on IP Management of Academic and Research Institute taken by faculty of Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law in March this year.

Workshop on IP Powerhouse: the fuel for startups (2nd March 2019) Dr.Malathi Lakshmi Kumaran, Executive Director, Lakshmisri Law Firm, New Delhi

Faculty of RGSOIPL have conducted short-term courses and workshops to disseminate information and train academicians and even personnel on IP rights and issues. For example, the short-term course on “Biotechnology and Intellectual Property Law” in February 2019 that taught participants from various institutes of national importance the importance of IP protection. Participants were encouraged to establish IPR Cell in their institute and file IPs in biotechnology. An IPR workshop for for Swami Vivekananda State Police Academy (SVSPA), Kolkata in January 2019 saw the participation of several police personnel, including Deputy Superintendent of Police, Police Inspectors and Sub-Inspectors. There was also a two day training workshop on IPR conducted for the National Defense Academy for Production, Nagpur to train junior and senior level officers in IP.

IIT Kharagpur has developed an online portal to facilitate the protection of Geographical Indication to build up community IP and emphasize IP creation that empowers the marginalized people. The Institute is pursuing several GI cases. Take the ongoing work on GoynaBori, a potential GI.

Part B registration for ‘Joynagar Moa’, a GI of West Bengal has also been initiated based on the visits to geographical location. Initial work on the registration of Kalkatti Jewellery, a potential GI has been started. Similarly, documentation work has been undertaken with respect to Axomiya Jewellery of Assam.

As many as 62 patents have been filed at the patent office of the Institute in 2018-19 in the key categories of agriculture, biotechnology, chemical, electronics, electrical and mechanical engineering and by the School of Medical Science and Technology. Every year, IIT Kharagpur celebrates the World IP Day on April 26 to raise IP awareness among student and researchers and felicitating the inventors whose patent has been granted.

Prof. C. Retna Raj, Professor-in-Charge of IPR & IR at the Sponsored Research and Industrial Consultancy wing of IIT Kharagpur said, “The IPPO award is a recognition for developing in-house IP ecosystem through awareness and promotional activities, the pioneering steps taken by IIT Kharagpur to build up community IP and sensitizing the surrounding social stratum and creating awareness among IP creators & enforcement personnel.”

Greater reliability

Times of India India Today Economic Times Energy Infra Post

In a major development that will lend impetus to the 2^nd stage of India’s nuclear power programme, the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Kalpakkam, has entered into a collaboration with the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur to carry out research related to the design and development of Fast Breeder Reactors (FBRs). A dedicated IGCAR-IITKGP R&D cell has been set up under an MoU in the premises of IIT Kharagpur under the Advanced Technology Development Centre’s Structural Reliability Research Facility of IIT KGP to address the key issues in software and systems reliability, safety and security, health monitoring, materials and manufacturing.

IGCAR has been pursuing indigenous technology development for sodium-cooled FBRs since 1971 and has designed the country’s first techno-commercial demonstrator fast breeder reactor, the 500 MWe Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR). The research collaboration with IIT Kharagpur will further the aim to functionalise the fully indigenous FBRs for the commercial production of nuclear power.

Commenting on the development, Dr Arun Kumar Bhaduri, Director, IGCAR said, “A strong research base exists in IITKGP in areas relevant to the fast breeder reactor technologies including performance and reliability assessment of structures, software and sensors & systems and rubber technology. IGCAR has already been interacting with the various departments at IITKGP. The collaboration will lead to indigenous design and development of reliable software, electronics and structures.”

Prof. Pallab Dasgupta, Dean, Sponsored Resesarch and Industry Consultancy, remarked, “The collaboration between IGCAR and IIT Kharagpur is of huge strategic importance. Research related to sodium based FBRs has several dimensions and IIT Kharagpur has the necessary expertise to provide R&D support to IGCAR in core areas like safety critical and reliable software, health monitoring of reactors, materials and manufacturing. This collaboration will require the collective expertise of our professors from diverse departments such as Computer Science and Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Physics, Metallurgical & Material Engineering and Rubber Technology.”

IIT Kharagpur has a long history of working with IGCAR and other units of the Department of Atomic Energy but this is the first time that IIT KGP and IGCAR are coming together to strategically engage in research cutting across several domains of science & technology for the FBRs. Recalling the long standing collaboration with BARC and IGCAR leading to the creation of the Structural Reliability Research Facility of IIT KGP, Prof. Baidurya Bhattacharya, co-convenor of the IGCAR-IITKGP R&D Cell, noted that several key experimental and computational setups will be created through the new initiative to enable researchers at IIT Kharagpur to develop technology that can be easily translated into the FBRs.

About the importance of FBRs for meeting the energy needs of the country, Dr Bhaduri said, “FBRs are inevitable for long term security and sustainability of clean energy, particularly for a country like India with a moderate uranium reserves and large thorium reserves. An FBR produces its fuel simultaneously while burning fuel to produce energy in a closed loop. This makes nuclear energy effectively a renewable energy.”

Dr Arun Kumar Bhaduri, Director, IGCAR, on the IGCAR-IITKGP collaboration:

Why was it necessary to collaborate with IIT Kharagpur on the research related to FBRs?

Reply: A strong research base exists in IITKGP in areas relevant to the fast breeder reactor technologies including performance and reliability assessment of structures, software and sensors & systems, and rubber technology. IGCAR has been interacting with the various departments at IITKGP. With a desire to further strengthen and streamline the collaboration between the two institutes, the current MoU has been signed between IGCAR and IITKGP for executing advanced projects related to sodium cooled fast reactor.

Where will the collaboration lead to?

Reply: The collaboration will lead to indigenous design and development of reliable software, electronics and structures.

Are there any other institutions with which IGCAR is tying up for similar kind of research?

Reply: IGCAR pursues collaborative research with other premier institutes such as IITs & IISc in different areas of their core expertise relevant to FBR science and technology.

Why are FBRs so critical to India’s future in nuclear power generation?

India is committed to reduce its carbon emissions intensity by 33-35 percent by 2030 as well as increase the clean energy electricity capacity to about 40 percent of the total installed capacity in the same period. FBRs are inevitable for long term security and sustainability of clean energy, particularly for a country like India with a moderate uranium reserves and large thorium reserves. It produces its fuel simultaneously while burning fuel to produce energy in a closed loop. This makes nuclear energy effectively a renewable energy.

As the Director of IGCAR what is your vision regarding India’s nuclear future and the special role that an institution like IIT KGP can play in it?

Reply: In line with the three stage nuclear programme for India as envisioned by Dr. Bhabha, I strongly believe that the FBRs are going to play the most important role in the future of Indian Nuclear programme. Fast Breeder Reactors can, in principle, extract all the energy contained in uranium or thorium. An institution like IITKGP shoulders the responsibility with IGCAR for indigenous development of cutting edge technology required for safe and reliable operation of FBRs.

As an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur how do you think the institution will gain from such collaboration?

Collaboration of IITKGP with IGCAR provides exposure of challenging problems of cutting edge technology to the bright students and also provides them with the sense of pride in contributing to the programme of national importance.

Banner design: Suman Sutradhar