The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Patent information cells to be set up

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Friday, Jan 02, 2009
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Patent information cells to be set up

Priscilla Jebaraj

In five universities in the State including Madurai Kamaraj University

CHENNAI: Guess who holds the patent for the technology behind the world’s favourite search engine? No, it’s not Google Inc, but Stanford University that holds the original patent for PageRank, since Larry Page invented the technology while he was a Stanford student.

While Silicon Valley’s educational institutions cash in by patenting their research, Indian universities lag far behind. Last year, the entire Tamil Nadu filed 450 patent applications, of which less than one per cent came from educational institutions, according to the Chennai Patent Office. In the same year, Stanford University alone filed some 200-odd applications.

To bring the patent culture to Tamil Nadu’s higher education sector, patent information cells will be set up in five universities next month. They are the University of Madras, Bharathiar University, Madurai Kamaraj University, Bharathidasan University and Manonmaniam Sundaranar University.

In the engineering, medical, veterinary and agriculture fields, other universities are being identified for the second phase of this project.

“It is not that Indian universities are not doing good research. But very little of it results in a patent,” says S. Vincent, member-secretary of the Tamil Nadu State Council for Science and Technology, which is setting up the cells with funding from the Central government.

“Most research goes into papers in journals and conferences. Publishing papers has become an academic exercise. We need focussed, need-based research which leads to a useful product that can be patented, not just a paper.”

One of the biggest problems is a little known fact among the academia: unless a patent application is filed within a year of the research being disclosed in a paper, it will be rejected.

“Novelty is one of the conditions for a patent grant, but many researchers don’t realise that,” says V. Rengasamy, Assistant Controller of Patents and Designs at the Chennai Patent Office. It is to spread awareness of such basic patent issues that the new cells are being set up. With an initial funding of Rs.10,000 each, which can be ramped up according to performance, the cells will conduct audits of the existing research to judge whether it is patentable, and motivate researchers to file applications.

They will also facilitate permission from university authorities. Initial applications can be sent to the State Council’s Patent Information Centre which searches international databases to ensure that the invention is new and unpatented. They will be passed on to central government agency Technology Information Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC), which will assist in processing the patent.

At a Loyola College research body, the Loyola Institute of Frontier Energy, younger scientists and students are seeing the importance of patent, says researcher N. Nagaraj.

“Till five years ago, everyone preferred to publish. Now there is an increased awareness of patenting…From 2002, we have been granted three patents. We have applied for two more.”

With a two-year process involved, many of those who file do not follow up, says the Chennai Patent Office.

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