IP law must to protect India's wealth:experts

Kharagpur, Jul 24 (UNI) India has almost lost the copyright over the delicious Basmati rice to the United States' rechristened 'Textmati' before the World Trade Organisation(WTO) stepped in to pass the judgement in India's favour.

The WTO had to come to the rescue again to protect the turmeric variety produced in our country.

''Lack of awareness and dearth of trained Intellectual Property lawyers throughout the country might lead to losing rights over products or services that belong to us,'' opined Prof. N L Mitra, former Vice-Chancellor of NLSIU, Bangalore.

Speaking to UNI after inauguration of Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law(RGSOIPL) at IIT, Kharagpur yesterday, Prof Mitra, who is also the Founder Vice-Chancellor of National Law School, Jodhpur said, ''If proper measures are not taken in time, India will soon lose the patents of some herbal products''. Prof Mitra was the Advisor for setting up of RGSOIPL at Kharagpur.

Director of IIT, Kharagpur Shisir K Dube said that objections were raised as to why a Technology institute was starting a law school in its campus but those concerns were put to rest once the Human Resource Development Ministry gave the go-ahead and matched it with a contribution of US$ one million for setting up of the law school.

The proposal to set up the first school of Intellectual Property Law in the country was mooted on March 28, 2005 by Vinod Gupta, an alumnus and Life Fellow of IIT(K), who pledged US$ one million.

Prof Dube said that IIT, Kharagpur was the first among the six IITs in the country to start a Management course and it has broken the rules once again by introducing a full-fledged course in Intellectual Property Law.

The Director said the institute had patented a particular variety of paddy and about 40,000 rice mills all over the country are using the technology to reap benefits. IIT Kharagpur had 25 patents to its credit last year, Prof Dube said.

The RGSOIPL has started with two programmes--An LL.B programme leading to Bachelor of Law with specialisation in Intellectual Property Rights(3 years) and a one and a half year Post Graduate Diploma programme in Intellectual Property Law. The intake capacity for the course would be 50 seats each and would increase to 500 in the next five years.

The programmes are offered to engineers, technologists and MBAs in line with the global scenario like in Europe and US, where technologists after completion of their degrees are required to undertake three years programme in Intellectual Property Law for being qualified as IP Attorneys.

Another 20 students would be taken into the IIT's Bhubaneswar facility in 2007. The IIT(K) is also planning to start an integrated BTech-LLB course in its second phase in the year 2009.

With India poised to become a hub of knowledge based activities, protecting one's Intellectual Property Rights has become all the more imperative.

UNI SP PL RN1804