68% surge in IIT-Bombay’s intellectual property rights applications – Hindustan Times

The Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT-B) recorded a 68% rise in the number of intellectual property rights (IPR) applications for its innovations in 2020-21, , even as the pandemic had locked the campus for students last March.

The institute filed 262 applications for IPR in the financial year 2020-21 as compared to 156 IPRs in 2019-20.

Of the 262 applications, 15-20 were for innovations and solutions for Covid-19, 163 were patent applications, 88 were trademarks (as compared to mere eight last financial year), and 10 design registrations.

IPR protects innovations from misuse, fosters competitive research and also helps commercialise new products and solutions in the market.

The increase in trademarks indicates more licensing possibilities, said Milind Atrey, dean (research and development), IIT-B.

“Trademarks are usually applied when either an industry partner is showing interest in getting a licence or when the researcher wants to start up a company. So an upward trend in more trademarks is a sign that more research is now getting ready for licensing,” said Atrey.

The campus closed down on March 14, 2020, as Covid-19 cases surged. Soon, the institute announced an early summer vacation and semesters kicked off thereafter with online classes. Currently, there are around 3,000 research scholars and students on campus, but most of the 11,000-odd students are still studying online.

“The pandemic shut down the campus for students but changed the priorities for resident faculty members and researchers. They could allocate more time to their research activities and prepare for the application process, which would have been put off otherwise,” Atrey added.

The number of patents granted to researchers in the institute has also doubled, from 67 last year to 120 this financial year. Atrey attributed this rise to a more efficient filing process of the central government.

“With streamlining of the patent filing process by the Indian patent office of the central government, the applications are now processed faster,” he said. While earlier innovators had to wait for five-seven years to get a patent, now the process takes around three years, he said.

IIT-B’s director Subhasis Chaudhuri said that protecting IP is the first step towards the institute’s new focus on the translatability of research output.

“IIT-B plans to put more emphasis on the translatability of our research output when protecting IP is the first step. Along with our incubator SINE (Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship), newly established school of entrepreneurship and the forthcoming Research Park, we plan to set up a TRL (technology readiness level) booster in the campus. Hopefully, with such efforts, IIT-B can catalyse the growth in Indian industry,” said Chaudhuri.

“We want to emphasise on the importance of industry collaboration in this process. So every research statement or problem should come from the industry, and every time a research is published or patented, it would be ideal to have an industry partner waiting. This is foster a more competitive research culture,” said Atrey.

For all Indian patents, the institute bears the expenses for the application process.

“Thereafter, if an innovator wants to apply for a patent abroad, we take a call on the commercialisation possibilities of the application process, taking into account the commercialisation aspect of the technology,” said Atrey.