NEW DELHI: In an ambitious bid to give university research a push and promote quality work, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has proposed establishment of Intellectual Property Management Cells in universities across the country.

Developed with the aim of not just creating awareness but assisting researchers and faculty members in having access to the best practices for identification, protection and management of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), the UGC feels the cell would help promote academic and entrepreneurial activities within the university community by ensuring that the inventor's work is protected by appropriate law and mechanism. According to the draft guideline paper "Awareness, protection and management of IPR in the university system'', the UGC will facilitate 50 universities in having research focus to set up such cells.

These cells will be encouraged to create their own corpus to become financially sustainable over a period of time. The UGC further plans to establish a national IPR facilitation centre in Delhi and four regional universities, with the location of national and regional university centres to be finalised on the basis of a competition. That is not all. The UGC is also looking at making the subject an integral part of the curriculum, with the draft guideline talking of preparing a model curriculum and learning material for regular academic programmes and short-duration training courses apart from having some universities -- especially those with potential for excellence -- to start academic programmes on IPR.

The IPR facilitation centres will work closely in association with the national and regional patent offices under the Union Ministry of Industrial Policy and Promotion. It will be made in such a way that the patent information system of the Ministry can be extended to the IPM cells or at least to the national regional centres in the university system.

As for funding, the UGC plans to support the universities with funds for filing Indian and international patents. While funding for first Indian patents would be provided through regional centres, support for filing international patents will be provided through the national centre.

According to the guidelines issued, "a panel of patent attorneys shall be maintained and fee structure laid down to enable university use their source for filing of patents. Similar process will be adopted for other types of IPRs."

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