Event: One day Workshop on ‘Patents’ and ‘Copyrights’
Date: February 8th, 2020
Venue: Seminar Hall,CIL Building at Panjab University, Chandigarh

In the current era of knowledge economy, Patents and Copyrights are the buzz words amongst the teaching fraternity of the universities. Govt. of India also has a mandate of making teaching faculty in higher education institutions IPR savvy.   In order to sensitise the faculty of Panjab University (PU) and CRIKC institutions, to these topics, Chair-IPR (PU) and DST-Centre for Policy Research (CPR) at PU, Chd. collaboratively organized  a ‘IPR Workshop: ‘Patents’ and “Copyrights’ under the ‘Faculty Development Programme’ on Saturday, February 8, 2020 in the CIL Building of the Panjab University. After the welcome address by Prof. Rajkumar, Vice Chancellor, Panjab University, Chd., he introduced the keynote speakers i.e., Prof. Sudhir K. Jain (ABV School of Management & Entrepreneurship, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi) and Mr. G R Raghavender (Jt. Secretary, Department of Justice, Ministry of Law & Justice, GoI, New Delhi).

Prof. Jain deliberated the audience about the importance of use of Intellectual property (IP) information for deciding research themes in universities and research laboratories. Additionally, he voiced prominent strategic points for promoting IP in the academia like setting aside a share of internal funding for IP activities, creation of IPR cells, and significant weightage of IP in the promotion criteria of university faculty.

Mr. Raghavender, fmr. Registrar of Copyrights of the Indian Copyright Office introduced the audience with the issues pertaining to copyrights and importance of its registration.  He emphasised on the fact that there is a need of effective science communication mechanism to disseminate the science knowledge amongst the masses. Ms Divya Kaushik, scientist, Patent Information Centre (PIC) of Punjab State Council for S&T introduced the participants with the Technology Innovation Support Centre (TISC) centres recently established by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

The workshop was attended by faculty members of the university and CRIKC institutions. The participants were deliberated up on the importance and significance of patents and copyrights and how they can play a crucial role in enhancing economical and intellectual prestige of an institution. The speakers emphasised on the fact that, researchers should not publish their findings in the public domain before filing a patent.