The Hindu Business Line : Public-funded research may pay dividends for scientists

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Public-funded research may pay dividends for scientists

P.T. Jyothi Datta

Mumbai, March 16 Scientists may not be the best negotiators, when it comes to converting their inventions into commercial products. But the Centre is set to change this through a research and intellectual property-related (IP) Bill that seeks to empower Government-funded institutions to commercialise their research, besides ensuring some of that revenue flows back to the scientist.

A draft Bill to protect and commercialise public-funded research has been circulated among different ministries and is with the Cabinet for comments and approval, Dr K.K. Tripathi, Adviser to the Department of Biotechnology, told Business Line. The Cabinet will decide whether to take the Bill to Parliament or seek further public debate, he said.

But, with the draft Bill being cloaked in secrecy, IP experts are concerned whether the proposed legislation will succeed in side-stepping the draw-backs of a similar Act in the US that had sought to IP-empower US universities in 1980.

On similar lines as the US’ Bayh-Dole Act, the draft Indian Bill encourages public-funded institutes to patent inventions and explores avenues for commercialisation. It also proposes that the inventor gets 30 per cent of the revenue from commercialising the patent, while 10 per cent is ear-marked for the institute’s IP Management Cell, Dr Tripathi explained. Rights to the product remain with the institute, while assignment rights are jointly held between the scientist, institute and the Government. Commercialisation plans require consent from all the three, he added.

There has been a substantial increase in the product filings by the Government-funded institutes, post the product-patent regime in 2005, he said, without giving details.

But can a US legislation that addressed specific issues with some success be ‘imported’ into the Indian context, questions Mr Shamnad Basheer, Research Associate with the IP Research Centre that is part of the Oxford University. Unhappy with the ‘non-transparent’ manner in which the Bill is being introduced, he seeks clarity on issues such as whether an inventor would have the discretion to decide to leave his/her invention in public domain. In some critical areas of science, it may make sense to encourage more ‘open science’ as opposed to a proprietary model, he observes.

Mr Mark Pohl, with US-based Pharmaceutical Patent Attorneys, agrees that the US legislation concerned did support some significant success stories such as blood-thinner Warfarin, for example, that came from a University patent.

However, universities have not benefited in revenue-terms, he says, citing an economic analysis by the US government that found that every dollar invested by universities in patents and licensing created approximately $0.30 in revenue. The missing link, he said, is universities’ lack a sense of what is commercially valuable. They tend to patent work that is scientifically creative or unusual, without knowing much about whether or not that innovation will make a profitable product.

Patent expert, Dr Gopakumar Nair, adds that over-negotiation by scientists, evaluation of the benefits of technology-sharing etc. will unravel as the proposed norms get implemented. The Bill should be flexible and there should be a head-room for change, if it has to succeed, he observed.

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