The competitiveness of an industry depends on its ability to develop advanced technologies as well as to protect such technologies through the use of Intellectual Property Rights. The more innovative the technology, the greater is the chance for the industry to attain technology leadership. Sustained technological innovation with the best IPR protection system could be a strategic tool to attain leadership position in the world market. India should emulate the US, Japan and some of the advanced EU countries. Can these best practices be studied in depth and applied to our present systems and practices of IPR? This is both a challenge and the need of the hour. Though India has time till January 2005, should India wait for two more years to introduce strict patent laws?

These were some of the views and concerns expressed at an international conference on "Innovation and Intellectual Property Rights" sponsored by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), the Andhra Pradesh Technology Development and Promotion Centre (APTDC) and the Government of Andhra Pradesh in Hyderabad on Thursday.

Presenting the theme of the conference, Shahid Alikhan, former Deputy Director-General of WIPO/ Undersecretary-General, UN, said IPRs were necessary for enhancing the quality and competitiveness of products. The government and the private sector should ensure that the IPR system facilitated techno-economic development in an environment friendly atmosphere.

He said the very important SMEs (small and medium enterprises) sector was still largely not aware of IPRs, and much worse, several inventors, innovators and creators of the works of mind were not yet aware of the basic parameters of IPR laws or on how to commercialise their inventions.

Shahid Alikhan said it was not enough to help the inventors and the innovators to register their inventions as patents but also to commercialise their inventions through an Inventors' Association under the auspices of CII.

Francis Gurry, Assistant Director-General and Legal Counsel, WIPO, Geneva, in his keynote address, said the challenge of centrality of IPR was more pronounced with overwhelming demand from the developing countries for international patenting. The consequences of centrality were in the shape of frequent tensions between intellectual property and areas of public policy. There were new claims of enfranchisement and attempts at subversion, he said. The number of applications for patent rights had gone up from 1.8 million a couple of years ago to 7-8 million at present. Backlogs are accumulating and the processing time was lengthening, he said. Disjunctioin between economic and technological conditions, technologies of perfect imitation and technological/digital divide were some of the other challenges.

He said awareness of IPR was vital in a knowledge economy and suggested that each country should have its institutional framework to promote IPR network. There was a steady increase in the number of IPRs obtained by the developing countries. He said in 1998, the US, Europe and Japan held 83% of total IPRs, but in the last four years there had been substantial increase in the number of IPRs obtained by the developing countries.

Ananda Mohan Chakrabarty, Professor, University of Illinois, College of Medicine, Chicago, said India ranked among the top 10 industrialised countries in the world, with a strong base of science and technology development and one of the largest pools of trained personnel. The strong industrial base in India, including the biotech industry, had contributed immensely to many of India's economic development, including a thriving information technology service. " But two things, it seems to me, have lagged behind --a spirit of innovation and an Intellectual Property Rights system that promotes innovation. India does not recognise products patents and consequently there has been no great incentive in India to develop new products, either in biotech or in other areas.

Chakrabarty said the oldest known example of the patent-type incentive system was recorded in Sixth Century BC. A Greek colony in southern Italy named Sybarites made a law that if any confectioner had invented a dish, no one else could make it for a year. Only the inventor was entitled to all the profits derived from the manufacture.

With the signing of TRIPS (Trade Related aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) product patent would become mandatory for India. Article 27 (1) of TRIPS defines broad international standards on patent protection for inventions that include both products and processes. By January 2005, countries like India would have to change their patent laws to conform to certain aspects of product patents from other WTO member countries.

What kind of patent laws should India frame that will not only conform to TRIPS rules and regulations but will also encourage science and technology innovations by the academic and individual scientists? According to Chakrabarty basically there are two models that India could follow. The first is the US model, which encourages innovation for industrial and economic development and puts no constraints such as those put forward by the TRIPS agreement. The US Supreme Court had ruled that "anything under the Sun made by man" could be patented so long as it falls under the categories of having an utility, novelty and written clearly to enable other practitioners of the art to reproduce the invention. The second is the European Patent Convention (EPC) model, which is basically the TRIPS model that denies patentability of inventions, that are against public order or morality or that involves patenting of higher forms of life.

What should be the position the developing countries on such problems, particularly when many are besieged with abject poverty, low industrial growth and sometimes catastrophic public health concerns? " I hope India, and other developing countries, will look at the booming economy of the US and its patent policy, and take the necessary steps to become a part of the legacy and remain vibrant and competitive," Chakrabarty said.

K Vidyadhar Rao, Minister for Major Industries, in his inaugural address, said Hyderabad was fast emerging as a global destination for advance research and development in biotechnology, information technology and drugs and pharmaceuticals.

He said the awareness level on patenting was increasing after the state government set up the IPR Facilitating Cell at the ICICI Park in July 2002. The Cell would bring global experts in association with WIPO to hold periodic training programmes.

The minister called for following the success story in South Korea where the government had insisted small and medium enterprises (SMEs) with more than five employees to have at least one patent.

Listing the several initiatives of the Naidu government to transform the state into a global knowledge hub, Vidyadhar Rao said the future of the country depended on the knowledge network and knowledge resources.

G V Prasad, Chairman, CII National Committee on IPR and CEO of Dr Reddy's Laboratories, said that the only source of competitive advantage in the future would be innovation and intellectual assets protected by a strong IPR strategy. Innovation was possible only by the right mindset. It was a major challenge for the Indian industry to move from imitation to innovation. Once commercially useful innovation took place and novel products or solutions were created, those assets needed to be protected through an intelligent IPR strategy.

Given the country's vast scientific human resources, India was at a natural advantage in focussing on research and innovation. Companies, which were able to create intellectual property through innovation and exploit them intelligently on a global scale, would create huge value. " I do believe that this is the next frontier for Indian industry. The rewards for success are very high both for organisations and society. Only a mindset of innovation on a global scale will help India become what our President, Dr Abdul Kalam, dreams about - a developed nation," Prasad said.

The inauguration of the two-day conference, attended by more than 300 delegates, with about a dozen from abroad, was followed by two technical sessions on Thursday. The first session chaired by Shahid Alikhan was addressed by Francis Gurry, Dr Heinz Goddar, European Patent and Trademark Attorney, Munich, Germany, Jeffery J Hardee, Vice-President and Regional Director, Asia Pacific Business Software Alliance, Singapore, and Dr V K Gupta, Director, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, New Delhi.

The second session chaired by Dr Blasubramaniam, Director of Research, L V Prasad Eye Institute and Chaieman, Biotech Advisory Committee of the Govt of Andhra Pradesh, was addressed by G V Prasad, CEO, Dr Reddy's Lab, Prof. Prabuddha Ganguli, Advisor, Vision-IPR, Mumbai, Dr P V Venugopal, Director, International Operations, Medicines for Malaria Venture, Geneva, Prof. Anand Mohan Chakrabarty and Prof. Ramnath Narayan Swamy, Indian Institute of Management. Bangalore.