Ibrahim Ahmad 
 
I ignore any news heading that has the word 'office' these days. I am sure, like me, most other people are fed up with the 'Office of Profit' business. But I expected editors of my country's business newspapers not to have missed this news piece. While I accidentally came across this very tiny box item, I believe it could have been a front page news for that day.

The news was about Kamal Nath, our Union Minister for Commerce and Industry inaugurating an IPR office in Mumbai. I was amazed to learn that there are only four offices in India that handle IPR for a country, which has a few million people working on cutting edge applications and R&D in the areas of IT, communications, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, and so on. While most of them are doing work for foreign companies, there are quite a lot of them working for Indian organizations, or are entrepreneurs.

India is expected to produce IT products and services worth $34 bn for domestic as well as the exports market. I need not tell anyone that most of the IT work is intellectual in nature. And here, we have just four IPR offices, and that too badly equipped, to serve one the fastest growing industries. As more and more software licensing will happen, companies with a strong patent and copyright position will gain.

The IT and Telecom ministry should be one of the main drivers of the IPR movement in India
In the year 2004-05, while much smaller companies in India such as Texas Instruments filed for 450 patents, ST Micro for 171, Intel for 135, and Cisco for 120 patents, Indian companies such as TCS and Ramco filed for 16 patents each.

Let me share an experience with you. During our annual DQ Top20 survey of IPR status in the country, most Indian companies turn out to be not geared for giving us information on how many patents they've filed for, and how many they have actually been granted. In fact many companies are not even aware of the process of filing for a patent. They have no idea who to approach and where to go. While the world has now accepted India as a creative giant in the software arena, this country does not have a clue as to how many patents have been filed.

While there are a few Indian private agencies that take up patent-filing jobs, they are yet to deliver the desired performance.  American patent-filing companies are just too expensive. This is one area that our government needs to take on, and on a war footing. We cannot have four offices in a few cities, when significant software development work is happening in over 25 locations in the country. The government has to ensure that a culture of IPR is encouraged among Indian companies. Some of the basic things needed is a good office with people who understand and are well versed in IPR issues, and a good IT infrastructure. Obviously, enough awareness programs have to be initiated so that people know what IPR is, what are its benefits, and how to get it done.

Some of us might not be in favour of getting the government into this, but I strongly believe that IPR is as strategic for the country as nuclear energy. India will have a very strong position in the global economy, if it can leverage its IPR potential. The Government should not wait for someone to come and work on it. IPR offices will be the 'Offices of Profit' for the country.

An interesting observation was the absence of our Union minister for IT, Dayanidhi Maran, whose sector is likely to be the biggest beneficiary of this office. I personally feel that Maran and his department should be the main driver for opening more modernized IPR offices.