RELEVANCE OF NEW NATIONAL IPR POLICY

CREATIVE INDIA: INNOVATIVE INDIA

All Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in India were governed by the TRIPS. Now for the first time Government of India has adopted a pro-active approach towards drawing a roadmap for IPR in the country and has come out with a Policy to improve investment climate in the country as well as promote innovation and improve national competitiveness; India has even declared this decade as the ‘Decade of Innovation.”

The Policy seeks to balance the goals of economic growth and social justice, and makes important recommendations towards the same. However, there are some areas where the Policy could have made more comprehensive recommendations. In particular, it would be important to ensure that India’s rich repository of traditional knowledge – particularly in areas like medicine – is offered the same level of intellectual property protection as other products and processes. In order to make the Policy a success it is  important for state governments to play the role of constructive partners in creating and maintaining a robust, equitable and predictable IPR regime. They can do this by establishing State level Innovation Councils and strengthen them through financial and other support.

Objectives:

The Policy lays down the following seven objectives:

1.   IPR Awareness: Outreach and Promotion – To create public awareness about the economic, social and cultural   benefits of IPRs among all sections of society.
2.   Generation of IPRs – To stimulate the generation of IPRs.
3.   Legal and Legislative Framework – To have strong and effective IPR laws, which balance the interests of rights   owners with larger public interest.
4.   Administration and Management – To modernise and strengthen service-oriented IPR administration.
5.   Commercialisation of IPRs – Get value for IPRs through commercialisation.
6.   Enforcement and Adjudication – To strengthen the enforcement and adjudicatory mechanisms for combating    IPR infringements.
7.   Human Capital Development – To strengthen and expand human resources, institutions and capacities for   teaching, training, research and skill building in IPRs.

Each program or activity under the objectives will be bench marked with the best parameters applicable to the Indian situation. Monitoring the progress of implementation of the National IP Policy, linked with performance indicators, targeted results and deliverables will be done.

As per Article 39 of the Constitution of India, “the State shall in particular, direct its Policy towards securing that the ownership and control of the material resources of the community are so distributed as best to serve the common good.” The National IPR Policy is contoured in a manner that it encourages greater use of exceptions and limitations to the otherwise exclusionary use of intellectual property, encourages the expansion of the public domain, secures proportionality in enforcement of IP rights, and promotes alternatives to IP.

Mayank Singh Raghuvanshi

Senior Associate

The Indian Lawyer