IPR Awareness- Patents and Drafting Patent Applications

What is IPR?

WTO defines “Intellectual property rights are the rights given to persons over the creations of their minds. They usually give the creator an exclusive right over the use of his/her creation for a certain period of time.”

Importance of IPR Awareness.

Like all other basic fundamental rights, the intellectual property rights of an individual also needs to be safeguarded. And to safeguard and protect it from exploitation, it becomes necessary that the creators are informed that such rights exist and also are updated regarding the procedure and legal proceedings. Thus, IPR Awareness becomes vital in such a scenario.

The Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, India has rightly stated the importance of IPR awareness, “In order to enhance innovation, competitiveness and economic growth in India, it is imperative to harness IP. More specifically, with the phenomenal growth of Indian E&IT sector and its need to move up the value chain, it is important that to foster innovation, IPR generated in India needs to be legally protected and exploited. Low awareness of IPR procedures and methodologies specifically for a complex area like E&IT is one of the reasons for a low IP portfolio from India.”

Source: [https://www.meity.gov.in/content/ipr-awareness#:~:text=IPR%20Awareness%20In%20order%20to%20enhance%20innovation%2C%20competitiveness,India%20needs%20to%20be%20legally%20protected%20and%20exploited.]

Patent and Drafting Patent Applications

A patent is the granting of a property right by a sovereign authority to an inventor. This grant provides the inventor exclusive rights to the patented process, design, or invention for a designated period in exchange for a comprehensive disclosure of the invention.

Source: [https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/patent.asp]

Steps to draft an accurate patent application:

The first major step in drafting patent application is strict and complete compliance with the patent law of the concerned jurisdiction.
For applying in India, one has to abide by Patents Act of 1970 and Patents Rules of 1972. Keep checking regularly for updates, if any.
A patent draft can be provisional or non-provisional.
For provisional draft the requirements as according to 37 CFR 1.16(d) are:- 1.The name of all inventors 2.The creator’s residential address. 3.The title of the invention. 4.Name and registration number of attorney or agent and docket number (if applicable) 5.Correspondence address.
For non-provisional draft, the requirements as according to 37 CFR 1.77 are:- 1. The title of your invention 2. A cross-referenced list of any related patent applications 3. A statement about any federally sponsored R&D —if applicable 4.The names of all parties if there is a joint research agreement 5. References to a “sequential listing,” any tables or computer program listings, as well as any appendix submitted to a CD or storage device and the incorporation-by-reference list 6.Background information on the invention 7. A brief summary of invention 8. A short description of the drawings 9. A detailed description of invention 10. The claim or claims 11. An abstract of the disclosure. 12. Sequence Listing, if not supplied on a CD or storage device 13. An oath or declaration

Source for above mentioned requirements : [https://www.upcounsel.com/patent-drafting]

Our Sessions

We are pleased to share that on 7^th March, 2020, Dr. Poornima Chandran our Senior strategic planner- IP Project Management was invited to deliver a guest lecture on “IPR AWARENESS SESSION WITH EMPHASIS ON PATENTS AND DRAFTING PATENT APPLICATIONS” at a two-day National Seminar On Recent Advances in Agriculture and Biomedical Research (RAABR-2020), organized by the Department of Botany and Microbiology, Acharya Nagarjuna University, Guntur, AP-522510.

The IPR awareness session covered basics of IPR, IPR legislations and practices related to Trademarks, Copyrights, Designs, Patents, GIs and Plant Varieties with specific emphasis on patent search and patent drafting. The endeavor of the invited lecture was to provide awareness regarding Intellectual Property, its importance and relevance both in national and global perspectives. The highly interactive session was well received by the academic faculty, researchers and students at the engineering colleges and universities alike and encouraged them to ask several to IPR related queries. The IPR awareness session is our humble effort to disseminate knowledge regarding IPRs to different stakeholders and promote the need of technology transfer.