National Webinar on “Sensitization on Intellectual Property Rights in Agricultural Research and Education” connection with Bharat ki Azadi ka Amrut Mahotsav

As a yearlong program has been launched by the Government to observe and celebrate the 75 years of Independence as “Bharat Ki Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav”, an Online National Webinar on “Sensitization on Intellectual Property Rights in Agricultural Research and Education” was organized by ICAR-CIWA, Bhubaneswar on 4th August 2021 at 3:00pm. The objective of the webinar revolved around sensitization of scientists/ innovators on IP regime, its management and benefits so that they can reorient their research endeavours and engage in knowledge creation leading to further innovations. This will result in faster technological progress which would undoubtedly benefit the farmers and farmwomen of our country. The webinar was attended by around 90 participants comprising of Scientists and staff of ICAR-CIWA, AICRP on Women in Agriculture and also scientists from other Govt. organizations.

The programme started with ICAR song, followed by welcome address by Dr. Tanuja S., Scientist and Organizing Team Member. Dr. Lipi Das, Principal Scientist and the Organizing Team Leader briefed about the importance of the webinar. She highlighted the significance of IPR, its advantages and impact on agricultural and allied sciences. Dr. Anil Kumar, Director, ICAR-CIWA, gave the opening remarks and also emphasized on importance of IPR and why it should be integral part of all research in agriculture and allied sciences.

The invited speakers of the Webinar were Dr Puneeta Arora and Ms Sukriti Goyal, Founding Partners Avid Invent, Hyderabad and Regd Indian Patent Agents. Dr. Puneeta Arora spoke on “Overview of Different types of IP with focus on patents and their roles in protecting Agri-IP”. She elaborated on the different IP’s, the patentable and non-patentable aspects in agriculture and importance of timely filing for IP to get due credit for the work of the researcher. Ms. Sukriti Goyal spoke on “Overview of Patent search, analytics in agricultural research and development, strategy development, along with industrial designs, copy right and trademark”. She spoke in detail about prior art search, databases for patent search and touched upon the copyrights, trademarks, and design patents. Further the legal aspects were also explained during her presentation. The deliberations were followed by the question answer session wherein all the participants have actively participated.

At the end of the programme, vote of thanks was rendered by Mr. Atul C. Hemrom, Organizing Team Member. Mr. Neetish Kumar, Scientist coordinated the overall programme.