Judges-Round table on Advanced Module on IPR adjudication

Bangalore, Aug 10 (UNI) Judicial officers of the Karnataka were equally competent and well-equipped to deal with the cases involving Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and other related issues, Karnataka High Court Chief Justice Cyriac Joseph said here today.

Speaking after inaugurating the 'Judges Round Table on Advanced Module on IPR adjudication', jointly organised by Karnataka Judicial Acadamy, FICCI and Christ Law College here today, Justice Cyriac Joseph has said in deciding the IPR cases there was a need to have an in depth study on the subject which was assuming more importance with the emergence of Knowledge industry in India.

"There is a wrong notion that only few courts in selected cities can handle IPR related cases. Courts in states like Karnataka and its judicial officers are equally well equipped and have developed expertise in handling it," he said.

He said that compared to other states the pendency of cases both at High courts and its sub-ordinate courts in Karnataka were less.

"In some courts virtually there are any pending cases and judicial officers are being asked to handle cases of other courts," he said.

Mr G V Subramanyam, Vice President SETLabs a subsidiary of Infosys said that research and innovation were now seen as the key factors determining the market value of a product or service. "It has become imperative for the industry to manage and protect ideas, inventions and processes more frequently or risk losing market share," he said.

Stressing that an efficient and effective IP enforcement regime was the need of the hour, he said that the increase in global trade coupled with technological revolution had led to increase in IP crimes.

Mr Akash Taneja, Executive Director, FICCI said that importance of IP was increasing by the day and the governments worldwide were adopting new strategies to combat IPR violations. "Well designed IP regime increases the national wealth and benefits consumers," he said.

Justice S R Bannurmath, Chairman, Karnataka Judicial Acadamy, said the Academy was taking pro-active measures to include new and emerging areas of law such as IP and information technology laws in training programmes for judicial officers. "In the three-day program, eminent academicians, legal experts and practitioners in the faculty and judicial officers were participating," he said.

the event is an attempt to improve the competence of the judges in dealing with IPR issues.

UNI