IIT Madras on patenting spree
The institute also found that filing patents in emerging nations such as
Bangladesh and Africa provide more value for the innovation than
registering them in advanced countries.
This year, IIT Madras is likely to file nearly 40 patents, a 25 per cent
increase over last year. Next year, the target is to reach 50, said
Krishnan Balasubramanian, Dean, Centre for Industrial Consultancy &
Sponsored Research.
Last year, revenue from IPRs was about Rs 2 crore. “We are negotiating a
large deal this year that will double or triple revenue from IPRs. On
an average, we are targeting Rs 3-4 crore annually in the near term,” he
told Business Line.
Top fields
Tield of nanotechnology saw the highest number of patents, as some of
the faculty in this domain are “very aggressive.” Other areas include
wireless technology, air-conditioning, noise and vibration, said
Subramanian, who is also a professor at the Department of Mechanical
Engineering.
Faculty members also separately apply for patents for technologies they
have developed in collaboration with various companies. This could be
another 20 every year. Companies file the patents with the faculty’s
name in it. There will a revenue sharing agreement on this, he said.
There used to be a perceived conflict between patenting and publishing.
This is only a perception, but not true. If a faculty member feels that
they have developed something that is patentable and publishable, they
can do both, said the institute’s director, Prof Bhaskar Ramamurthi. The
institute has an Intellectual Property Cell, he said.
Balasubramanian said that the IPR management involves patent process and
commercialisation. Through incubation, faculty and students take up
some of these technologies for formulating business propositions.
There is also an eco-system – the IIT Madras Research Park – developed
over the last few years to foster incubation. The institute also work
with companies to take certain scalable IPs rapidly into the market. The
patent process takes a long time. “So on the date we apply for patent,
its commercialisation starts simultaneously,” he said.
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