The Hindu Business Line : Consultancy firm to help infotech cos deal with IPR issues

WITH Indian software services companies going global and transnationals expanding operations here calling for increased focus on patents, complexities associated with Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) related to IT and allied areas have necessitated creation of specialised focus teams. Further, this has opened up scope for consultancy firms to assist them in the patent regime.

Mr Patrick Lloyd, Partner, Reddie & Grose, a European Patent attorney in the area of software and experts from Lex Orbis, an IP practicing group, met with representatives from IT and bioinformatics industry to address issues relating to the IP Rights.

This assumes importance as the recent TRIPS (Trade related aspects of IPR) compliance amendments to the Indian Patents Act, brought in changes with regard to the patentability of computer software.

At a meeting hosted by the Confederation of Indian Industry and Andhra Pradesh Technology Development and Promotion Centre, on "A gateway for IP Protection in the Genomic and Cyber Space", Mr Lloyd said while creating IP in itself is one critical aspect, the issue of filing for patents and acquiring it is of strategic importance as this could enhance business value.

"Often while corporations file for patents, they do not want to acquire them in haste since they would like to appropriately modify to suit the business demands."

"It is estimated that there are over 100 patent issuing authorities and, therefore, the concept of worldwide patenting looks horrendous. In practice, relatively few patent applications these days are prosecuted through more than half a dozen patent offices.

"A sensible practical list includes the US, Europe, Japan, with a selection taken from Canada, Australia, Korea and lately China and India are becoming part of this development. As more and more Indian companies in the software services, pharma sector and biotechnology get global, they would need expert support and this is where consultancy could assume importance," Mr Lloyd said.

Referring to IBM, which has over 40,000 patents across the globe, Mr Vedant Pujari of Lex Orbis, said that the importance could be gauged from the fact that about $10 billion (around Rs 46,000 crore) in its revenues were from licensing of these patented products and services. So is the case with Dow Chemicals, which has over 29,000 patents. When Dow was confronted with the problem of spending about $30 million (around Rs 138 crore) to maintain these patents without actually using all of them, it had to carve out a separate office to address patent related issues and to strategise its use.