The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : State to form IPRs Supervisory Council

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Wednesday, Jul 11, 2007
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Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

State to form IPRs Supervisory Council

Special Correspondent

Plan for law to govern Intellectual Property Rights

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Government will soon form an Intellectual Property Rights Supervisory Council to oversee utilisation of intellectual property rights and their violations, encourage research that could lead to patents, and assist persons seeking to secure patents.

Presenting the draft of the State Policy on Intellectual Property Rights in the Assembly on Tuesday, Law Minister M. Vijayakumar said the Government would also explore the possibility of a legislation to govern intellectual property rights (IPRs) and their use by persons born in the State and other parts of India and foreigners. The general endeavour would be to keep IPRs as part of ‘creative commons,’ but certain restrictions might be inevitable to ensure that there is no exploitation of traditional and other knowledge of the State and displacement of persons who eke out a living using traditional knowledge, Mr. Vijayakumar said.

The policy draft focusses especially on the State’s traditional knowledge and biodiversity and seeks to give the Kerala Biodiversity Board a key role in grant of permission to individuals of Indian or foreign origin for the use of the State’s biological resources as also its traditional knowledge. Even in cases where the National Biodiversity Board has the authority to grant licences and permissions, the State Biodiversity Board must have a say. This would imply additional responsibilities for the board. In order to strengthen the board to take up such responsibilities, an appropriate legislation may be necessary, the draft says.

The proposed council will have the Chief Minister as its chairperson. It will be an autonomous body with a few Ministers, scientists and experts in various related areas as its members. All research institutions functioning directly under the State Government or with its financial assistance should route all their patent applications through the council. Individuals are free to file applications on their own, but would get all support from the council, if sought.

The policy draft also envisages formulation of a special policy package in respect of ‘outsourced research,’ the emphasis being on ensuring that the human resources available in the State Government-controlled institutions do not become cheap labour for multi-national corporations. Any patent secured using private, foreign Government/Government institution funds must be made available to the ‘creative commons’ so that any person will be able to make use of them.

In the case of patents secured using State Government fund or own funds of State institutions, the patents must be the property of the State. The researchers concerned will be rewarded. The Government will be free to make the fruits of such research available to the ‘creative commons.’ In the case of Centrally-funded research projects, the decisions will be subject to the rules to be framed by the Union Government.

Mr. Vijayakumar said the draft policy document would be circulated widely to generate a discussion on it. The Cabinet would consider all the suggestions before finalising the State Policy on Intellectual Property Rights and announcing it, he said.

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