Pharma companies need to create an awareness in intellectual property (IP) and must carve out opportunities with IP enabled outputs. This will help companies to effectively turn its R&D efforts into real benefits with no time loss and threat from competitors, according Dr. B Vijayaraghavan, associate director (IP), Ranbaxy Research Laboratories.

Speaking at the R&D Forum organised by Marcusevans at Banglore on the second day he emphasised that IP awareness is imperative not only in a global context but also for India too. Products and processes need to be designed to be free of any IP issue with respect to third party IP. Organisational IP needs to be protected as a tool for excluding competition. IP adds value to process and products and opens an out-licensing opportunity.

With the increasing indispensability of IP, Dr. Vijayaraghavan stated that all IP knowledge must not reside in select pools, it should pervade the organisation. All key functions from scientists, manufacturing, analytical teams, to regulatory, quality assurance, marketing, business development, in & out licensing and sourcing teams must be IP enabled.

In order to create an awareness in the organisation, a task force with cross functional teams led by IP should be set-up and the importance of intellectual property protection should be propagated through seminars, news letters apart from interactions with attorneys in India and abroad.

While creating an IP team for the company, Dr. Vijayaraghavan insists that the candidates should be fresh recruits with sound technical skills as they are usually easier to train than existing in-house personnel from other departments. The training imparted must be extensive in all areas covering prior-art searches, patent drafting skills, IP laws and regulations.

Hence while drafting a patent, it is important to ensure provision for exclusivity of the patent at least for a limited period of time, he said.
During patent portfolio management, companies must allocate a budget as maintaining a patent portfolio in several countries is an expensive proposition. Not only that office actions in different countries could be demanding on resources. The time spent on securing an unimportant IP is a waste of time. Therefore during the course of executing a patent portfolio all resources must be employed with proper IP portfolio management, he stated.

He concluded by stating that IP enabled research today was an imperative for Indian companies and not just a choice. The enhancement of organisational as well as individual IP awareness is necessary. The creation of IP should be followed up with a sound IP management policy.