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ICMR releases Handbook on IPR & Technology Transfer to step up awareness among scientists
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Ramesh Shankar, Mumbai
October 31 , 2017
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The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has released the Handbook
on Intellectual Property Rights & Technology Transfer which will
help increase awareness among ICMR scientists to help them protect all
new knowledge before publication.
This document, which has
detailed FAQs on Intellectual Property Rights, is an effort by the ICMR
in the direction to increase awareness of IP protection before
publication. The booklet has been prepared by a group of experts under
the chairmanship of Professor Seyed Hasnain.
The ICMR's
initiative in this regard is significant as despite several efforts, the
awareness of IPRs in the ICMR network of scientists and extramural
researchers was still far from optimal. There is some innovative
research done in the nation-wide network of ICMR laboratories that is
still getting published before IP protection. The present FAQs on
Intellectual Property Rights is another such effort in the direction to
increase awareness of IP protection before publication.
According
to senior ICMR officials, the concept of patent-and-publish has assumed
significance since 2005 when India became fully compliant with the
global IPR regime viz., the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights
(TRIPS). The TRIPS mandates uniform patent protection systems across the
globe and the earlier process patent regime in drugs and
pharmaceuticals in India shielded our people from higher cost of
medicines no longer exists. We therefore need to innovate and compete
globally which is at once a challenge and an opportunity. Simply put the
ICMR and India needs to create systems to both innovate and forge
alliances to bring out affordable products of public health importance
to Indian people. The council has been seized of this issue for long and
has taken steps to promote creation, protection and exploitation of new
IP. IPR Unit was set up in the ICMR headquarters in 1999.
Ever
since its creation in 1999, the IPR Unit has been striving hard to
promote innovation and research that would lead to patentable leads. The
Unit has geared itself over to create an inventor-friendly system for
scientists to consider protection of new knowledge created as new
intellectual property before publication in peer reviewed journals.
Several steps have been taken to that end which includes bringing out
the first IPR Policy in 2000. This was followed by the creation of
Innovation and Translation Division in 2013. For the past hundred years,
scientists working within and with support from the Indian Council of
Medical Research have been carrying out high quality research to achieve
its objectives. Any new information/data generated in the laboratory
are immediately published for its widest dissemination and application
for public good.
Typically it has been noticed over the years
that scientists of the Council are keener to publish in the best
possible journals as it would lead to peer recognition in a highly
competitive world. We have devised a system for ensuring that the new
inventions/leads obtained in the laboratory are eligible for patent
protection. For this purpose, a simple, structure new inventions
reporting proforma has been devised to help researchers report their new
inventions. In a short period, we inform the scientists whether the new
inventions are eligible for patenting or not. If it does not fulfill
the criteria, they are advised to publish. Those leads that are
patentable, we advise researchers to simultaneously help us file prepare
the patent application along with the preparation of the manuscript for
publication. Once the patent is filed, they could mail the manuscript
for publication.
This system has worked reasonably well and many
researchers (both intra and extramural) are becoming increasingly
conscious of the need and importance of protecting such new knowledge
generated through appropriate IPR systems before publication. The
results of our efforts are visible: the Council filed only 15 patents
for the first 80 years. Since 1999 over 140 patents have been filed. Two
things standout- scientist with support from ICMR have been doing
innovative work but the support systems have either unavailable or
inadequate. Secondly, the recognition that patents lead to products for
use in the Indian public health system that will help create especially
diagnostics and vaccines for diseases exclusively prevalent in India and
other poor countries that do not attract the interest of multinational
pharma companies.
Despite these efforts, we still believe that
the awareness of IPRs in the ICMR network of scientists and extramural
researchers is still far from optimal. We believe that there is some
innovative research done in the nation-wide network of ICMR laboratories
that is still getting published before IP protection. The present FAQs
on Intellectual Property Rights is another such effort in the direction
to increase awareness of IP protection before publication, officials
said.
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