Srinagar : The Directorate of Internal Quality Assurance (DIQA), Kashmir University (KU) Thursday organised a daylong workshop on ‘Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)-Patent Filing’ in collaboration with the varsity’s IPR Cell here.
The participants received hands-on training from the experts about patent filing process – from concept to grant, to equip them with essential knowledge and practical skills needed to protect their innovative ideas and inventions.
On the occasion, Vice Chancellor, KU, Prof Nilofer Khan encouraged the participants including faculty, research scientists and scholars to come forward and to apply for patents.
She said the deliberations will be helpful in understanding the overall dynamics involved in patent filing and “we may see some improvement and forward movement in this direction in the future”.
“As per the recent rankings and surveys our university is doing very well in several areas and parameters such as research and publications but number of patents continues to be a grey area as the same was reflected by Peer NAAC team during its last visit,” she lamented.
“We will surely reward and felicitate faculty members and scholars working hard in this direction and will also explore the possibility of financial assistance and bearing other expenditure involved in IPR and patent filing and get the proposals approved by the competent body of the university,” she asserted.
KU Registrar, Dr Nisar Ahmad Mir said that the number of patents filed, secured and granted does have an influence in shaping the opinion of the policy planners and funding agencies, said: “Whenever institutions like universities approach any national or international funding agency and other such government organisations, they always ask how many patents the university has filed and how many out of those have been granted which tells upon the significance it is going to have in policy planning.”
In her keynote, Dr Gauri Gargate, faculty member from IIT, Kharagpur while referring to success story of Google said: “One patent can change our life and Google which was once founded as a start-up is today a giant company which generates 300 million dollars revenue for the Stanford University.”
Dr Gauri also provided hands-on training to the participants while making her presentation on ‘Practical aspects of patents’ and ‘Intricacies of patent drafting and prosecution.’
Dr Mohammad Ahsan Chishti, faculty at NIT, Srinagar, in his presentation on ‘Intellectual Property Rights-Patents’ demonstrated how companies having the highest number of patents are eventually the top companies of the world.
Earlier, in his welcome address, Director, DIQA, Prof Manzoor Ahmad Shah highlighted the aims and objectives of the workshop and said that such deliberations would help in fostering a culture of innovation, creativity and patent filing which would eventually take the university to higher levels in terms of rankings and accreditation.
Dr Anna Bashir, Coordinator IPR Cell KU was the Organizing Secretary of the workshop and also conducted the wrap-up session of the workshop during which she also presented a brief profile of the varsity`s IPR Cell.
