“Research and Development as well as Commercialization of Technology will be the key factors in Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) field”, noted IPR expert Dr. Rajesh Acharya, Managing Director, H. K. Acharya & Co., Ahmedabad said. He was Chief Guest in inauguration of 4th batch of Post Graduate Diploma in IPR (PGDIPR) Course at Gujarat Technological University (GTU). Total 13 candidates who were qualified in the Indian Patent Agent Examination 2018 after completion of PGDIPR at GTU, were felicitated during the programme.
In the inauguration ceremony of 4th batch of PGDIPR course, around 80 delegates including 54 enrolled candidates from varied field were present. Mr. Padmin Buch, IPR Domain Expert and BoA Chairman of Accuprec Research Labs was the Guest of Honour in the event. He said that, “PGDIPR course occurred by GTU is one of the best in India in terms of content and faculties. The course has been designed of international level as it contains Chinese Patent System, Japanese Patent System and African Patent System beside Indian Patent System. Now GTU has planned to make the course more dynamic by adding aspects of latest technologies Artificial Intelligence, i 4.0 and 3D printing Technology etc.”
“GTU has so far organized more than 120 workshops in last eight years and by that way provided training to nearly 8,000 faculty members and students for the Basic to advance level of IPR as well as conducted basic workshops for students too. GTU has introduced ‘Patent Search and Analysis Report (PSAR) Generation’ compulsory to BE (Sem 7) and M. Pharm (Sem 3) students. ‘Patent Drafting Exercise (PDE)’ is introduced in BE (Sem 8). To increase the skilled human resource that are not only technically sound but also having in-depth knowledge of IPR and patents, GTU has launched “Post Graduate Diploma in IPR” course from September 2014. Due to these efforts 356 patents have been filed by GTU students and faculty member so far,” Prof.(Dr) Navin Sheth, Vice Chancellor of GTU said.
Dr. Manish Rachchh, Director (R &D) & CEO of Accuprec Research Labs Pvt. Ltd, who was the pioneer in starting the PGDIPR course in GTU, was the Guest of Honour in the event. He said that, “Today is very special occasion of Republic Day, on which we are starting the 4th Batch of the PGDIPR course. I believe that patriotism is not only to serve the country on border, but if we help our country in more and more patent filing, then it will also be kind of patriotism. Because this will help our country to become more & more prosper. I am happy that 13 students of three previous batches of PGDIPR passed the Patent Agent exam. I think this is the highest success rate of a single university or institute in India.”
Mr. Hiranmay Mahanta, Honorary Director of GTU Innovation Council told about Student Start-up and Innovation Policy (SSIP) of Government of Gujarat, under which Rs. 25,000 financial support has been provided for patent filing by Start-up and student innovators. GTU has selected such 35 projects for the grant during regular month. Some more will be selected during the next round of screening, which will be held during February in Ahmedabad, Surat, Rajkot and Vadodara. Gujarat has become number one in Start-up ecosystem in the country. Now as more innovative projects are coming up, Gujarat will be number one in patent filing by Start-ups and academic players within next Three years.”
“Intellectual Property Right (IPR) and in particular Patent is playing a key role in the current knowledge based economy of any country. In the last year, from India nearly 45,000 patents have been filed. But out of these 70% patents have been filed by multinational company and OR foreign individuals and rest by Indian researchers. In the year 2015 onwards China is filing nearly 10,00,000 patents in each year. Out of which nearly 20% patents have been filed by multinational company and OR foreign individuals and rest by Chinese researchers. The reason for this big difference between India and China patent filing is due to difference in IP literacy among the research community. In China, IPR is the compulsory subject at school level. Due to this many professional working in the field of IPR and patents are available in China,” Amit Patel, I/c of IPR section of GTU said.