Everything you need to know about the new IPR policy
In this knowledge driven era, companies have no time to waste in creating an intellectual property strategy. The 21st century belongs to entrepreneurs. It is driven by creativity and innovation, which need to be protected and channelised for better use in future.
Enhancing the protection of IPR beyond the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), the Indian government has announced an IPR policy that is compliant with global norms. Intellectual property (IP) is a collection of ideas and concepts, which can be protected through trademarks, copyrights and patents. If you make it easy for others to steal your ideas, you can ultimately end up washing away your own path to success.
The new IPR policy is designed in a way to facilitate the ease of doing business in India. The policy ensures credibility with potential investors and strategic partners encourages them to invest in India. India claims to have been pressurised by the US to make the IPR protection stricter in India to curb the piracy of music, movies and unlicensed software, which causes losses of $7 billion annually.
It has been announced that trademark registration will take only one month as per the IPR policy. After implementing this policy, copyright laws will be under the control of the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (“DIPP”).
The new policy lays down seven objectives, which are briefly covered below.
- Creating awareness – The new policy aims to create awareness among all sections of society about the economic, social, and cultural benefits of IPR. It will be made a compulsory part of the curriculum in major institutions. The need to open a national research institute for IPR has also been proposed, to increase outreach.
- Innovation – To offset India’s growing foreign dependence, India needs to develop indigenous products. Through its national IPR policy, the government’s main thrust is to create an environment where people can think innovatively and generate innovation in every field. The policy will help mainly inventors and entrepreneurs who are dealing with an overload of knowledge and ideas that need to be protected (from infringers) through trademarks, copyrights or patents, as may be required.
- Balanced structure of legal framework – Protection of intellectual property can only be provided through well-defined laws, which balance the interests of the public with those of intellectual property owners. If there are no protection mechanisms in the legal system, then people will not be encouraged to create more intellectual property. The new policy will lead to stronger institutional monitoring mechanisms to curb IP offenses at the state level.
- Administration and Management– The policy aims to modernise and strengthen service-oriented IPR administration. Digitisation of all government filings has made it quite hassle free to register trademarks online by using IP India’s Site. By 2017, the government aims to lower the average time for pending IPR applications to 18 months (down from 5-7 years) and trademark registration to one month (down from 13 months).
- Commercialisation of IPRs – The policy aims to enable Indian companies to get value for IPRs through commercialisation. Most business owners do not know how their brand impacts the value of their business. A strong brand is nothing but an intangible asset that includes trademarks, copyrights, patents and trade secrets which are the intellectual property of that company. At the time of valuation or in case if the owner is considering selling his business, then intangible assets like your intellectual property can command more value than other tangible assets. Also, a well-protected brand attracts investors as they will feel safe to invest in a company that has everything secured in legal terms to avoid any future conflicts.
- Enforcement and Adjudication – Protecting intellectual property with trademarks, copyrights and patents plays an essential role in monetising innovation. By strengthening the enforcement and adjudicatory mechanisms for combating IPR infringements, a company can stop others from stealing its work. The process of opposing and safeguarding IP will involve coordination between various agencies and guiding IP owners to follow best practices to avoid digital piracy.
- Human Capital Development – To strengthen and expand human resources, the new policy calls for (i) new institutions and capacities for teaching, training, research and skill building in IPRs; (ii) the opening of R&D institutions; and (iii) making IPR a compulsory subject to be taught in schools and colleges. The aim is to develop a increasing pool of skilled IP experts, to facilitate the growth and judicious management of IP assets.
Wrapping it Up
After ‘Startup India’ and ‘Make in India’, India now needs to protect the ‘Creative India: Innovative India’ by simply registering everything that we create. Every new business owner should be aware of his IP rights and should hire a trusted intellectual property consultant to help drive out the myths and build a strategy to best protect the company.
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- In the Small States category (overall), Nagaland tops, followed by Mizoram and Tripura. Towards the tail end of the overall Delta ranking is Uttarakhand (9th), Arunachal Pradesh (10th) and Meghalaya (11th). Nagaland despite being a poor performer in the PAI 2021 Index has come out to be the top performer in Delta, similarly, Mizoram’s performance in Delta is also reflected in it’s ranking in the PAI 2021 Index
- In terms of Equity, in the Large States category, Chhattisgarh has the best Delta rate on Equity indicators, this is also reflected in the performance of Chhattisgarh in the Equity Pillar where it ranks 4th. Following Chhattisgarh is Odisha ranking 2nd in Delta-Equity ranking, but ranks 17th in the Equity Pillar of PAI 2021. Telangana ranks 3rd in Delta-Equity ranking even though it is not a top performer in this Pillar in the overall PAI 2021 Index. Jharkhand (16th), Uttar Pradesh (17th) and Assam (18th) rank at the bottom with Uttar Pradesh’s performance in line with the PAI 2021 Index
- Odisha and Nagaland have shown the best year-on-year improvement under 12 Key Development indicators.
- In the 60:40 division States, the top three performers are Kerala, Goa and Tamil Nadu and, the bottom three performers are Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Bihar.
- In the 90:10 division States, the top three performers were Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Mizoram; and, the bottom three performers are Manipur, Assam and Meghalaya.
- Among the 60:40 division States, Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh are the top three performers and Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Delhi appear as the bottom three performers.
- Among the 90:10 division States, the top three performers are Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland; and, the bottom three performers are Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh
- Among the 60:40 division States, Goa, West Bengal and Delhi appear as the top three performers and Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Bihar appear as the bottom three performers.
- Among the 90:10 division States, Mizoram, Himachal Pradesh and Tripura were the top three performers and Jammu & Kashmir, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh were the bottom three performers
- West Bengal, Bihar and Tamil Nadu were the top three States amongst the 60:40 division States; while Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan appeared as the bottom three performers
- In the case of 90:10 division States, Mizoram, Assam and Tripura were the top three performers and Nagaland, Jammu & Kashmir and Uttarakhand featured as the bottom three
- Among the 60:40 division States, the top three performers are Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa and the bottom three performers are Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Goa
- In the 90:10 division States, the top three performers are Mizoram, Sikkim and Nagaland and the bottom three performers are Manipur and Assam
In a diverse country like India, where each State is socially, culturally, economically, and politically distinct, measuring Governance becomes increasingly tricky. The Public Affairs Index (PAI 2021) is a scientifically rigorous, data-based framework that measures the quality of governance at the Sub-national level and ranks the States and Union Territories (UTs) of India on a Composite Index (CI).
States are classified into two categories – Large and Small – using population as the criteria.
In PAI 2021, PAC defined three significant pillars that embody Governance – Growth, Equity, and Sustainability. Each of the three Pillars is circumscribed by five governance praxis Themes.
The themes include – Voice and Accountability, Government Effectiveness, Rule of Law, Regulatory Quality and Control of Corruption.
At the bottom of the pyramid, 43 component indicators are mapped to 14 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that are relevant to the States and UTs.
This forms the foundation of the conceptual framework of PAI 2021. The choice of the 43 indicators that go into the calculation of the CI were dictated by the objective of uncovering the complexity and multidimensional character of development governance
The Equity Principle
The Equity Pillar of the PAI 2021 Index analyses the inclusiveness impact at the Sub-national level in the country; inclusiveness in terms of the welfare of a society that depends primarily on establishing that all people feel that they have a say in the governance and are not excluded from the mainstream policy framework.
This requires all individuals and communities, but particularly the most vulnerable, to have an opportunity to improve or maintain their wellbeing. This chapter of PAI 2021 reflects the performance of States and UTs during the pandemic and questions the governance infrastructure in the country, analysing the effectiveness of schemes and the general livelihood of the people in terms of Equity.
Growth and its Discontents
Growth in its multidimensional form encompasses the essence of access to and the availability and optimal utilisation of resources. By resources, PAI 2021 refer to human resources, infrastructure and the budgetary allocations. Capacity building of an economy cannot take place if all the key players of growth do not drive development. The multiplier effects of better health care, improved educational outcomes, increased capital accumulation and lower unemployment levels contribute magnificently in the growth and development of the States.
The Pursuit Of Sustainability
The Sustainability Pillar analyses the access to and usage of resources that has an impact on environment, economy and humankind. The Pillar subsumes two themes and uses seven indicators to measure the effectiveness of government efforts with regards to Sustainability.
The Curious Case Of The Delta
The Delta Analysis presents the results on the State performance on year-on-year improvement. The rankings are measured as the Delta value over the last five to 10 years of data available for 12 Key Development Indicators (KDI). In PAI 2021, 12 indicators across the three Pillars of Equity (five indicators), Growth (five indicators) and Sustainability (two indicators). These KDIs are the outcome indicators crucial to assess Human Development. The Performance in the Delta Analysis is then compared to the Overall PAI 2021 Index.
Key Findings:-
In the Scheme of Things
The Scheme Analysis adds an additional dimension to ranking of the States on their governance. It attempts to complement the Governance Model by trying to understand the developmental activities undertaken by State Governments in the form of schemes. It also tries to understand whether better performance of States in schemes reflect in better governance.
The Centrally Sponsored schemes that were analysed are National Health Mission (NHM), Umbrella Integrated Child Development Services scheme (ICDS), Mahatma Gandh National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SmSA) and MidDay Meal Scheme (MDMS).
National Health Mission (NHM)
INTEGRATED CHILD DEVELOPMENT SERVICES (ICDS)
MID- DAY MEAL SCHEME (MDMS)
SAMAGRA SHIKSHA ABHIYAN (SMSA)
MAHATMA GANDHI NATIONAL RURAL EMPLOYMENT GUARANTEE SCHEME (MGNREGS)