A freedom to operate search, also known as a clearance search or right-to-use search. This patent search helps the businesses determine whether their proposed product or process would infringe any existing patents in a particular jurisdiction.

As we witness the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the digital transformation is at its peak and is in harmony with software development. Thus, the software industry and the development of various software-based technologies are anticipated to grow exponentially to sustain the transformation. From transportation to healthcare and from services to education, the software based inventions play a significant part in the transformation process across all industries.

Intellectual property rights (IPR) are intangible assets, which gives an exclusivity or monopoly to the owner for a certain period. Intellectual property rights are Patents, Industrial Designs, Trademarks, Copyrights, Geographical Indications, Plant Varieties, and Trade Secrets.

The ongoing global pandemic and its resultant repercussions on economy is unprecedented. Strong economies have strong Intellectual Property (IP) environment. Thus, when the economy suffers, so do its IP environment. The economic implication is across all levels and all sectors of businesses. Hence it goes without saying that innovation is suffering.

The World Health Organization (WHO) explains COVID-19 (coronavirus) as the infectious disease caused by the most recently discovered coronavirus. This new virus and disease were unknown before the outbreak began in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. It is popularly referred to as the cousin of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome).

In a world crammed with diverse applications and web services, it is highly essential to optimize their working. Co-ordination of information is highly essential for efficient rendition of services to make the human life easy and stress free According to an analyst firm Gartner: “the usage of Internet of Things (IOT) will surpass the world population in the year 2020 for the first time”! Pertaining to this, it was soon realized that there was a need to deal with collaborative applications requiring minimal latency in processing and a computing methodology.

Off late there has been a lot of attention on the Intellectual property Policy of China. In relation this aseries of round table discussions (AS IN THE TITLE)was held at the USPTO headquarters on the 20th of November, 2019. The participants were from law schools, American Intellectual property law Association, the USPTO, Law firms, Business Schools and Business council amongst others

Universities and public research institutions are among the direct contributors towards innovation and research, particularly in emerging economies. The potential pool of talent for innovation in these economies also emanates largely from educational institutions and research institutions. Off late, the significance of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in higher education has been widely recognised. This could be credited to the National IPR Policy approved by the Union Cabinet in May 2016, which was the first ever IPR policy framed by the Government of India.