Microsoft extends IPR Scholarship program

NEW DELHI: Microsoft Corporation India Private Limited felicitated the three law scholars eligible for ‘The Microsoft Intellectual Property Scholarship Program’ this year.

The IPR Scholarship program was instituted last year as a part of Microsoft’s MOU with the prestigious National Academy of Legal Studies and Research University (NALSAR) Hyderabad.

Microsoft further announced the national roll out of this scholarship program to include 11 law colleges across the country today, for capacity building and creating a pool of robust IP lawyers specialists with a strong knowledge base in the area of IT and Intellectual property.

The three scholarship winners this year are Maheshwari S, Santosh Krishnan and Nandini R. from NALSAR from the final batch of the B.A. B.L. (Hons.) program.

They have been awarded scholarship basis the evaluation of their Research papers on pre approved topics related to IPR. The Research scholarships constitute cash prizes equivalent to the monetary value of their final year tuition fee.

Encouraged by the success of the program and the growing interest in the area, the scope of this program has now been expanded to the national level. Henceforth the scholarship program would be now open to students from eleven law institutions: National Law Institute University, Bhopal, National Law School of India, Bangalore, Gujarat National Law University, Gujarat, ILS Law College, Pune, Maharishi Dayanand University, Rohtak, Himachal Pradesh University, Shimla, Symbiosis International University (SIU), Pune, Panjab University, Chandigarh, University of Delhi, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi across the nation.

Announcing the Microsoft scholars for this academic year, Nancy Anderson, deputy general counsel, Microsoft Corporation said, “Innovation is the bedrock for the development of any industry. Fostering innovation and creating a strong IPR environment is even more critical for a country like India to take the giant leap to be a knowledge based economy. Our IPR Scholarship program is essentially focused to deliver on this objective by way of supporting the creation of a sustainable IPR ecosystem whereby we promote, recognize and reward the best of breed budding IPR practitioners in the country today.”