Comments invited on National IPR Policy

DIPP placed on web draft policy on National IPR and invited suggestions. Salient features:

Objective 1 - IP Awareness and Promotion
Create awareness on a bigger scale. Since signing of TRIPs  workshops are held as regular events and scientists cannot be said to be unaware of IPR.

Objective 2 - Creation of IP 
Audit and bench line studies- more reports do not help.

Facilitate creation and protection of ‘small inventions’ through a new law
on utility models; Small invention?

 Introduce the ‘first-time patent’ fee waiver and support systems for
MSMEs and reduce transaction costs in other ways (e.g. prior art search); Is small fee and Google search for prior art limiting IP creation by MSME?

 Provide statutory incentives, like tax benefits linked to IP creation, for the

entire value chain from IP creation to commercialization;  These possibly will be fiscal incentives. Challenge is how to provide these benefits to units not recognised by DSIR. Need to understand why less than 10% of earmarked funds are utilised by DeitY for patent reimbursement.

Objective 3 - Legal and Legislative Framework
Reports on Standards not required. Sending teams to standard setting meetings also will not help. Influencing global standards with IP generated in India is a wish, governments do not set private standards. Companies are invited to the consortium only when they are working on state-of-art technology. The gold plated gate-pass to standard setting committee needs funding for a long period to private firms Indian owned and MNC owned. The legal requirement is AMENDING GFR (GENERAL FINANCE RULES) OF INDIA PROVIDING FOR GRANTS TO PROVATE FIRMS AND PROVISION TO WRITE-OFF INVESTMENT IN FAILED INNOVATIONS.

Objective 4 - IP Administration and Management
Rank and pay of officers is important. The highest ranking official should be of the rank of Secretary to GOI.

Objective 5 - Commercialization of IP
All assumptions need thorough checking. IP commercialisation is a topic for universities, nations should focus on IP trade. Funding IP acquisition  by researchers to MSME is also a nation building  activity.

Objective 6 - Enforcement and Adjudication 

Training Police and Juduiciary: ongoing process. quick results cannot be expected. what IP crimes are more relevant to India?

Objective 7 - Human Capital Development
Need to check sustainability of IPR cells in educational institutes from experience of TIFAC, NRDC etc.

Thrive Solar Energy invites proposals from women entrepreneurs for setting up solar lamp assembly units.

Thrive Solar Energy Private Ltd., (THRIVE SOLAR) located in Hyderabad is focused on designing and developing high quality, low-cost LED home lights that help serve the millions of poor in inaccessible areas in Asia and Africa. Thrive solar proposes to help set up around 500 SOLAR LED lights manufacturing and assembly centers in India to help empower women, provide local employment, increase the work skills and provide for kerosene free and well lighted rural India.
Investment required -Rs 5.25 lakhs.
Contact for DPR: ranga@thriveenergy.co.in

India Water Week - 2015

India Water Week 2015 - is being organised by the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, National Water Development Agency and Central Water Commission from January 13-17th 2015 in New Delhi. 
This year's theme is "Water Management for Sustainable Development"
Details: http://www.indiawaterweek.in/index.aspx

AP Government sets up entity for Innovation Society

A.P government has set up 3 entities for development of ICT Industry namely

• eGovernance Authority
• Electronics &IT Agency
• Innovation Society.

I was invited to join Executive Council of 3rd entity -Innovation Society,

Innovation Society

Technology survives and thrives through innovation. All the 3 areas, namely, e-Governance,

Electronics and IT are substantially technology-based and hence innovation has to be promoted. Moreover, specific capacities and skillsets are required to be built/ harnessed for successfully promoting these sectors. Hence the need arose for a society for Innovation.

Terms of Reference

a) Creation of an Innovation Policy and agenda, with more focus on Electronics and IT;

b) Design and establish an Innovation and Transformation Academy for creating a pool of
highly talented professionals and entrepreneurs, who can contribute significantly to the
development of the State.
c) AP has to take advantage of the situation to leapfrog in terms of the technology and
business models, processes and procedures. The innovation required for such
leapfrogging in all areas involving technologies, would be the responsibility of the
Society.
d) Nucleating Start-up villages and providing guidance and support for their growth;
e) Accelerating the implementation of the various schemes of GOI for Capacity Building in
the ESDM sector, as already alluded to in section D2;
f) Creating and implementing a framework for enhancing the quality of graduates in IT and
Electronics, with active collaboration of the Industry;
g) Launching a knowledge portal as the repository all best practices in e-Governance, IT
and Electronics;
h) Designing innovative, futuristic and cost-effective blue-print for the Information
Infrastructure and Systems required for the New Capital for AP.

Composition
The Innovation Society shall be constituted under the AP Societies Registration Act, 2001 and shall be headed by a CEO who shall be technocrat, with proven record of promoting innovation in technology areas. In order to effectively monitor the functioning of the society as per the mandate set in the Blue print, the Society shall have the Governance structure with a II - Tier mechanism as given below:

Governing Council
1 Honorable Chief Minister Chairman
Members
2 Hon’ble Minister (IT)
3 Advisor(e-Governance, Electronics & IT)
4 Chief Secretary
4 Special Chief Secretary, Planning
6 Principal Secretary, Finance
7 Sri BVR Mohan Reddy, Vice Chairman, NASSCOM
8 Prof U B Desai, Director, IIT, Hyderabad
9 Sri. Lalitesh Katragadda
10 Sri. Satish Andra, Industry Representative
11 Mr. Sanjay Vijay Kumar, Pilot Incubator
12 Secretary, IT Member Convener

Executive Council
Secretary (IT) Chairman
Members
Sri Pranav Kumar Suresh, CEO, Startup Village
Dr R Raghunandan, Executive Director of Indian STEPS & Business Incubators
Dr. Aynampudi Subba Rao, Visiting Professor, Innovation & Incubation at IIT Hyderabad
Ms Annie Mathew, Director, Asia Pacific Alliances & Business Development, Blackberry
CEO of Innovation Society Member/ Convener

Secretary, IT may invite Prl. Secretaries/Secretaries/ Academicians/Industry Representatives as and when required to Governing Council / Executive Council for their value addition.

Promoting Semiconductor startups

Make-In-India philosophy and reports of larger innovation fund with DeitY have rekindled hope for a synergistic policy to promote new technology ventures including the dream of INDIAN DESIGNED CHIP .

Chip development has become prohibitively expensive over time. While one person could design a chip in the 1960s, design teams can reach into the hundreds of engineers today. Products may take years to develop, and then the projects are turned over to third-party manufacturers, known as foundries, for production. The chips are more complex because the circuitry is so dense that chips can have billions of transistors on them, with the level of detail resembling a street map of the world.

Startups and new chip designs are the lifeblood of the semiconductor industry.New incubator , Silicon Catalyst targets startup with fewer than 10 employees and less than $2 million in funding.

Export of an active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) is not an infringement under Section 107A of the Patents Act.

On November 5th, in Bayer Corporation (Bayer) v. Union of India & Ors (NPL), the High Court of Delhi (Court) examined the scope of India’s Bolar exemption. Specifically, the issue to be decided in this case was whether the exportation of an active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) constituted a defense to infringement under Section 107A of the Patents Act.
The decision:

After a review of the facts, the Court accepted that the product NPL sought to export was not for commercial purposes since the amount was only sufficient to make 1000 to 2000 tablets (which was approximately the single trial batch size required by the Chinese Regulatory Authorities). Thus, according to the Court, the only question that had to be addressed was whether Section 107A covered export of a patented product for use by an overseas importer to conduct studies and generate data for the purpose of seeking regulatory approval in that country. 

After reviewing the history of the Bolar exemption in the U.S., India’s accession to the TRIPS agreement, the introduction of Section 107A in the Patents Act in 2002 and its subsequent amendment in 2005, the Court stated that the exclusion to a patentee’s right as provided under Section 107A was wider than the exceptions provided by the laws of the U.S. Specifically, the Court stated: 

“India is one of the largest producers of generic versions of drugs around the world. Given the economic realities of our country, providing cheaper medicines is a necessity. The parliament in its wisdom has, thus couched the exclusion to a patent, as provided under Section 107A, in wide terms. The sweep of the plain language of Section 107A, thus, cannot be restricted in the manner as canvassed on behalf of Bayer. 

…Plainly, Section 107A of the Act takes within its fold any sale of a patented invention which is required for development and submission of information under any law in a country other than India that regulates the manufacture or sale of any product. Indisputably, under the Chinese Law, submission of studies and data related to bio-equivalence and bio-availability of API in a generic version, is required as discussed earlier and the sale of 1 kg. of Sorafenat to HPCL can be reasonably stated to be related to the studies that are required to be conducted by HPCL for obtained the regulatory approvals. 

…[t]he language of Section 107A of the Act is determinative of the question whether export as sought for by NPL is permissible within the exemption of Section 107A of the Act. The use of the expression ‘reasonably related to’ as used in Section 107A of the Act would plainly mean a reasonably nexus. Thus, the only question that needs to be answered is whether there is any reasonable nexus between the sale of Sorafenat by NPL to HPCL and submission of information under the law in force in China. In my view, the answer to this question is clearly in the affirmative. 

…It is also important to note that the language of Section 107A of the Act is materially different from the law as applicable in U.S. Whilst, the US Law restricts the safe harbour to a sale within United States and solely for purposes related to information under a Federal Law, Section 107A of the Act is circumscribed by no such conditions. Thus, a sale even outside India would fall within the sweep of Section 107A, provided it is reasonably related to development and submission of information as required under a law in force in India or outside India.”

The Court also rejected Bayer’s arguments that the language of Section 107A excluded “exports” because this term was not specifically recited. Specifically, the Court stated:

“I am not inclined to accept this contention for the reason that the expression ‘selling’ is wide enough to even include cross border sales (i.e. exports). If the Parliament intended to restrict the exception to only sales within India, the same would have been expressly stated as was done by the US Congress under 35 US Code 271(e)(1).”

Finally, the Court examined the question of whether Section 107A should be read to include only sales made “within” India. The Court answered the question in the negative for three reasons: 

1.  The plain language of the section did not support such an interpretation. Specifically, there were no “words or expressions” that allowed such a restriction to be read into this section. In fact, to the contrary, Section 107A expressly permits use for submission as required by the laws outside of India.

2.  Even if a purposive interpretation of Section 107A is attempted, such an interpretation favors permitting export. According to the Court: 

“[T]he purpose for excluding development activities and uses for regulatory approvals is to ensure that exploitation of patented invention is not restricted beyond the period or sphere of exclusivity granted to the patentee. Thus, although initiative and effort of an inventor must be rewarded, the protection is limited and should not stifle further development and restrict participation beyond the period of exclusivity. There is a strong case for enhancing availability of essential drugs at affordable prices and the safe harbor exception must extend to permit developing overseas sources also.” 

3.  National barriers offer only limited barriers to trade. As a result, confining the exclusion of Section 107A to sales within India would not aid the object of such exclusion. 

Source: Lisa Mueller

Report of the Forum on High-Tech Defence Innovation

India is the largest arms importer in the world, which means that it is exporting not only foreign exchange, but also entire eco-systems that a thriving defence industrial complex could have generated for India, with all its benefits.  India needs to urgently discard its “Import with Benefits” model and usher in a Defence Industrialization Strategy (DIS) through indigenous, high-tech innovation.  A successful plan has to dig practically into every aspect of our Nation’s functioning, outlined in the more detailed report below. The Report is the Forum’s voice, an articulation of what it stands for.

Vallurupalli Nageswara Rao- edupreneur from Andhra

In the year 1959,Sri. Vallurupalli Nageswara Rao, founded 'Southern Engineering Works' (SEW) in Vijaywada, A.P. India, along with late Sri. Y. Purnachandra Rao and Sri. Y.M.G. Nageswara Rao as co-founders to pursue civil engineering construction activities. Part of the prestigious Nagarjuna Sagar Dam in Andhra Pradesh was the first project SEW e executed. The company was awarded a major dams such as, Tawa, Bargi, Bansagar, Hasdeo Bango, in Madhya Pradesh, Srisailam and Priyadarshini Jurala in Andhra Pradesh. In 1983, the company was converted to a Private Limited Company and named as SEW Constructions Ltd. In 2008, the company was renamed as SEW Infrastructure Ltd. to highlight commitment to infrastructure projects.

He belongs to the successful entrepreneurial community of Andhra that believed in paying back to society. VNRVJIET, top engineering institute in Hyderabad is named after him.  

Chinese Manufacturer of award winning Keyboard looking for Indian partners

Mo Xiaodong(Stephen Mo) is inventor of vertical numeric keyboard, which received Gold medals in exhibitions held in Germany, France, Hungary. The product is available for license to manufacture in India. Contact person:

Mo Xiaodong(Stephen Mo), 

Mobile phone:+86 18612560998, 

email: jbhmoxiaodong@163.com

CII Industrial Innovation Awards 2014

Total 81 applications were received all across India and from leading companies under different award categories. After the first level of submission and subsequent online jury top 65 have been selected for the 2nd stage. Two level of screening were carried out on these 65 organizations, consisting of Onsite Jury Assessment (In direct interaction with organizations and Assessors) and Final Jury (physical meeting of Assessors to evaluate the results) and top 23 were shortlisted for the Grand Jury. In addition the Final Jury has also recommended to consider 3 more organizations to be part of top 26 most innovative organization for the year 2014.  After the successful conclusion of Grand Jury for the CII Industrial Innovation Awards 2014 top 26 innovations have been identified as the top innovation driven organizations for the year 2014.

CII Industrial Innovation Awards 2014 Winners are:

Grand Winner (Overall): Bilcare Ltd.

Manufacturing Sector MSME: Pluss Polymers Pvt Ltd & AP Organics ltd

World Intellectual Property Rights' Bank

World IPR Bank offers a bouquet  of Services to OEMs, Technology and IPR Transferring Corporations. The Key Services Include

• Transfer of Technology and IP
• Technology and IP Safety
• Financial and Licensing Transaction
• Technology and IP Banking
• Technology and IPR Valuation
• IP and I2KIC Training Programs.

After leaving IAF prematurely in 2012, Dr Ajay Batra started this organisation to help Indian companies  in moving up the IP Value Chain. So far have trained over 86 senior industry professionals from over 27 organisations on Global best practices on Transfer Of Technology and IPRs. 

Contact:

Wg Cdr Ajay Batra PhD., PMP (Retd.)

 CEO

World Intellectual Property Rights Bank

Hyderabad, New Delhi, India

+919910863666, 9985489990

Indian Innovator Sampath kumar seeks donation on Kickstarter for a research project in Mississippi state university aimed at improving water condition in lakes.

Nualgi is a patented nano-scale nutrient formula in the size range of 5-100 nanometers. At this scale, elements react differently with each other, remain suspended longer, disperse easily across the water column, and are therefore “bio-available” to marine organisms.The liquid additive contains 12 essential nutrients in a nano silica base that acts as a nutrient and a carrier. These nutrients are specifically chosen to stimulate diatom growth in the water column.

Diatoms (micro algae) produce 30-50% of food in aquatic ecosystems.

They release O2 and consume CO2, dramatically increasing dissolved oxygen levels. This helps aerobic bacteria break down organic matter (pollution) and Diatoms also happen to be the favorite food for Zooplankton. In turn Zooplankton are the primary food for fish, crustaceans, and other organisms. 
By boosting Diatoms, Nualgi empowers the natural food chain at the source!
The product and process was invented by Sampath Kumar in India and supported under TePP.

Now Nulgi America is planning to carry out experiments in Mississippi state university to review Nualgi’s safety and effectiveness at reducing water pollution to improve water conditions in a commercial aquaculture setting.
Donate today. 

Patent on ` “Digital Controlled Precise Dispensing Valve for Liquids under Gravity Flow”' with product tehnology from Satish Pathak available for license globally

Innovator Satish Pathak's patent “digital controlled precise dispensing valve for liquids under gravity flow” overcomes all limitations of today’s two-stage flow control technology giving following advantages:
1. Eliminates need of two-stage flow and need of two valves by using only one single valve.
2. The new concept of only one single maximum flow-rate and several dispensing packets of varied sizes stretches the range of liquid dispensing target quantities, making it highly versatile for small, medium and large quantities. Hence, it’s a substitute for 3 to 4 pairs of valves.
3. The smallest packet measures fraction of gram that becomes “Least-Count” of the valve, a all new property assigned to valve. This thrashes out concept of % accuracy, delivering any quantity in specified wide range at par with Least-Count! This further saves cumulative losses observed in % accuracy.
4. Less variety of valve sizes is required as one valve-type can handle varied viscosity materials.
5. The factors like maintaining header level are redundant as the new concept automatically compensates the changes in header level and ambient temperature too.
6. Made of SS316 and Teflon, makes it suitable for many industry sectors like Oil and Petroleum, Pharmaceutical, Flavour & Fragrance, Paint & Resins, Polymer, Food & Beverages, Biotechnology, Textile, Ink, Dairy, Leather, Pesticides and many more. The applications can also be found in irrigation, animal farming etc.

THE PROTOTYPE HAS BEEN TESTED AND THE TECHNOLOGY IS READY FOR COMMERCIALIZATION. CONTACT: info@samiep.com

Chanchall Dass is finalist in World Oil Award 2014 in the Innovative Thinker Category.

World Oil Awards every year celebrates innovations in Energy Industry and this year 2014 innovator Chanchall Das was shortlisted as finalist in the `Innovative Thinker Award'. 
Das was strong believer in life time learning, acquired engg graduation degree from Institution of engineers followed by masters in Operations from NIT, Duragpur and MBA from IGNOU. While working at ONGC, he developed a new method  for  Multiple Zone Oil and Gas Production Technology for simultaneous production of oil and gas from multiple reservoir through single well without any crossflow. ONGC gave him permission to patent and commercially exploit the technology.He began his entrepreneurial journey by incubating his startup Das oilfield Technologies at NDBI. 
Contact : cdass01@gmail.com

AccuSpine from UG students of John Hopkins University

AcuSpine is the finalist of this years Collegiate Inventors Competition (USA).
Project Description  is given in the University page. The students promoted start up white light medical to commercialize the invention.

Stagnant Manufacturing: Governance and Policy Slack: E Book by IKF (IRIS Knowledge Foundation), Mumbai, India jointly with Forum for Global Knowledge Sharing.

There is optimism in the air with `Make-In-India' campaign and in these eSSays analysts focus on the issues. 
The first essay by Aradhna Aggarwal deals with the decline of manufacturing in all its aspects, including employment, inter-state differences and technological change. The next essay deals with the main cause of decline, namely, poor investment climate. Biswanath Goldar advocates the creation of a large number of industrial jobs through rapid growth of the manufacturing sector. Arup Mitra argues that growth alone is not sufficient to achieve major improvements in economic and social well being of the poorer sections. Vinish Kathuria emphasises the importance of the informal sector and argues that for both manufacturing and services the informal sector has been the major employer. Kalirajan and Nguyen discuss the huge potential in exporting environmentally friendly goods for which there is a huge global demand.Finally Bino Paul analyses wages and productivity relationships.

The compilation in the form of E Book (PDF) can be downloaded free (after registration) with Forum for Global Knowledge Sharing

Carrier Ethernet Switch Router: Big ticket Technology Transfer from IITB

The biggest technology transfer from IITB is 
for Carrier Ethernet Switch Router licensed to ECIL, Hyderabad.

A first hand account of this technology development is narrated by innovator Prof Ashwin Gumaste.
 .. we proposed the framework of Omnipresent Ethernet (OE for short), in 2009. The conceptual idea behind OE was to collapse multiple networking layers into a single layer, be backward compatible with existing technologies, make a strong impact on CAPEX and OPEX, and be able to support carrier-class services that generate revenue (essentially be deterministic). In OE, we took advantage of existing patterns in the Internet connection graph and manipulated such interconnection to meet our goal of end-to-end carrier-class services on a single layer. We observed that irrespective of the physical topology, a network within the Internet could be abstracted to a tree shaped structure. Using this interconnection hierarchy, along with the well-known concept of binary routing and source routing, we were able to convert any network to a binary tree or graph by adding “dummy” nodes. 
To prove that OE worked, we published a post-deadline paper at OFC 2009, showcasing an OE experiment in the lab. This paper was very well accepted by academia and industry. The technology was first displayed in parts to the international audience through journal and conference articles that were used to vet the theoretical framework. Subsequently, prototypes were built using off-the-shelf equipment  to demonstrate the working of the technology. These were primarily coded by engineers at IIT Bombay. On successful demonstration of the prototypes, an effort was made to build our own PCB that could lead to a  series of commercial products. Three teams were formed that focused on the hardware, software, and the PCB. The hardware team was responsible for the RTL and ASICs, the software team for the network management system, and the PCB team for the PCBs, the testing, and mechanicals of the board. 5 versions of the hardware code exist – the final version, which has now become the backbone of the commercial router manufactured by ECIL, is close to 100,000 lines of RTL code.

Europe’s best clean-tech innovation of 2014

Climate-KIC, the EU’s main climate innovation initiative, has announced that Dutch start-up aQysta has been named Europe’s most innovative clean-tech venture by a jury of esteemed entrepreneurs, financiers and business people in its Europe-wide Venture Competition. aQysta will receive €40,000 worth of investment, access to business tutoring and media support to further develop its hydro-powered floating irrigation system that can increase crop yield up to 5 times and replace diesel-powered systems.

A prototype of aQysta’s pump in action in Nepal

aQysta’s product is designed as a sustainable, low-maintenance, low-cost irrigation pump for rural communities. aQysta’s pumps do not require any external source of energy like fossil fuels or electricity to operate and can be assembled locally – also in developing countries.

Although the Barsha pump (Nepalese for "rain pump") is a new product, it's based on a very old design – it has its origins in ancient Egypt.

The pump itself is essentially a water wheel on a floating platform, that's moored in a nearby flowing river. The moving water rotates the wheel, that in turn utilizes a spiral mechanism to compress air. That air drives water through an attached hose and up to the fields.

Energy-saving Nordic Power Converters from Denmark took second place with €20,000. The audience award went to UK-based Reduse’s revolutionary ‘unprinting’ system that lets you reuse office paper several times before it gets recycled. Reduse picked up the third prize of €5,000.

The competition was held as part of Climate-KIC’s annual Festival of Innovation which took place in Valencia, Spain this year. The competition showcases and rewards the innovation and enterprise happening on the European climate change scene. The 18 finalists were drawn from the winners of national competitions hosted across Climate-KIC’s 12 European hubs.

Pepsico seeks technologies for `(agriculture) Waste to Worth'

To increase the sustainability and energy efficiency of food processing, PepsiCo is interested in opportunities for extracting value from all food manufacturing by-products. Currently, this material is typically dehydrated and sold as low cost animal feed. PepsiCo is interested in alternative uses for by-products such as potato peels and starch, oat hulls, corn bran, coconut husks, and fruit peel.

Two categories of suggestions are of interest:

• Processing methods to transform or extract higher value products that could be used by PepsiCo within their own processing operations or sold as food or feed ingredients (e.g. ferulic acid from corn bran, powdered orange peel)
• Companies interested in these materials for further processing

Suggestions of interest will include:

1. A description of the processing technology and equipment required
2. An estimation of the volume of material that can be processed per year
3. Manufacturers with interest in extracting or purchasing higher value products from specific by-products
4. An indication of the market size and value for the ingredient or feedstock

Source:IdeaConnection

Spark to Commercialization process from Harper

New materials are patent rich and many firms intent on taking up manufacturing in India find starting from zero base is not desirable. They scout for technology supplier who can be an existing  materials manufacturer abroad and few others also would like to tie with specialized process technology suppliers. 
 Harper offers a range of thermal processing systems for new materials like Energy storage materials, Nano materials, Carbon fiber, Ceramics. Unique is their on-site technology center which assists companies with the commercialization of new materials. At this facility, they work collaboratively with clients as they optimize their thermal process, determine the most effective type of system, and collect the data required for pilot or commercial scale-up. Portfolio of enabling patents and qualified staff involved in collaborative development adds to the depth of innovation process.

Contact person: 

John Imhoff

Inside Sales Engineer

Harper International, an Employee-Owned Company 

Ph. 716-276-9900 x 1189

Direct: 716-276-9898

Fax 716-810-9460

jimhoff@HarperIntl.com

www.HarperIntl.com

Trade Secrets stolen by Ketankumar Maniar for employment in India

This case makes an interesting reading. The facts of the case clearly establish unauthorized downloading of intellectual property classified as Trade secrets. But , it is not clear why Ketankumar did it. He did not sell it in the market or pass it on to new employer. The case file says, he intended to get a job in India based on this. 
That is interesting as there is no medical device manufacturer in India who is competing with the US firm BD and thus could profiteer from these trade secrets related to disposable pen injector. Is it a corporate espionage or related to his patent 8029482.
Case File:    

Professional Training of Cluster development executives

Promoting MSMEs through clusters has become a dependable tool for policy makers around the globe. Over 50 countries have taken up this initiative with encouraging results. A background on the same is available at our 2012 Cluster Conference website (http://clusterconference.in/pdf/ThemePaper-International-Conference.pdf)

Success of this programme pivots around an entity called the Cluster Development Manager (CDM), also known as a Cluster Development Agent/Executive, who plays the role of an informed and trustworthy broker and links the MSMEs present in clusters to GVCs and also enhance their capacity at an affordable cost through “joint actions”.

Foundation for MSME Clusters (FMC), Delhi  have fine tuned a methodology to train the CDMs to carry out this challenging task and conducted over 50 such training programmes globally. The cluster development methodology documents for promoting competitiveness, sustainable production, poverty alleviation and innovation are available at  (www.fmc.org.in/Msme_Publications.aspx).

Invitation to Management Institutes

FMC invites Management institutes to offer cluster management as an optional subject to students and also include this in short duration training programs for SME. FMC will provide complete backup including  presentations, case studies and reading materials.

Contact:

Neetu Goel

Senior Manager

Head: Training and Capacity Building Cell

Foundation for MSME Clusters <neetu.goel@msmefoundation.org

Make in India program facilitates Strategic Alliance between Zen Technologies and Rockwell Collins

In 30s international cross licensing agreements were widespread in electrical and chemical industries. Next phase were joint ventures with local firms as multinational enterprises expanded overseas. Strategic alliances got noticed in 80s. Unlike other forms of cooperation, these strategic alliances bring together global companies that cooperate in certain areas while they continue to compete in other parts of their business; they involve leading edge technologies and advanced capabilities and are formed to fulfil strategic objectives rather than merely to comply with local legislation. 

Alliances forged by rival firms can take on 3 different forms .

1. complementary: A firm distributes on its domestic market a product initially developed by a competitor
2. Shared-supply: The competing firms develop and/ or manufacture a common element which is then incorporated in their respective products
3. Quasi-concentration:A consortium of rival firms develops, manufactures and markets a final product common to all partner firms.

The difference between a joint venture and complementary alliance is that here both the firms are capable of competing on their own, which is not the case in joint venture where the local firm is dependent on partner for technology. After liberalisation most of Indian Joint ventures collapsed with joint ventures partner preferring to start his own in India. There are no known cases of joint ventures upgrading to strategic alliances. 

In this background Zen Technologies entered into a Strategic 

Alliance with Rockwell Collins (RC), an American firm specializing in 

aviation simulation and training products. The partnership will look 

to combine complementary strengths in simulation and training to 

build on air and ground solutions for the Indian military.

This type of alliances would strengthen Indian design and 

technological capabilities while at the same time giving our defence 

best of global products. 

Patentable Subject Matter

Visit to USA by PM Modi is followed by news/ views on Indian IPR policy. It is time to learn more.
Lisa Mueller is a partner in Michael Best’s Intellectual Property Practice Group and the chair of the Life Sciences and Chemical Practice Group. Ms. Mueller has extensive experience in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical areas. For 10 years, she has worked closely on-site with in-house legal departments of international pharmaceutical companies, handling a variety of patent and freedom-to-operate matters, providing training to new in-house counsel and meeting with scientists and other personnel regarding various other intellectual property matters. 
Mueller addressed the thorny issue of Patentable Subject matter in a 10 part blog. Part 1 covers USA, Part 2 Canada, Part 3 India, Part 4 Russia, Part 5 Brazil, Part 6 Europe, Part 7 China, Part 8 Australia, Part 9 South Africa  and Part 10-Japan..

10 technologies of tomorrow that will be in use in 2025

Based on research trends Thompson Reuters came out with 10 predictions of innovation.

• Dementia declines,
• Solar becomes the primary source of energy,
• Type 1 diabetes become preventable,
• Food shortages disappear with successful indoor crop growth,
• Electric air transportation takes off,
• Everything, everywhere will be digitally connected,
• Cellulose derived packaging takes the market from petroleum based packaging,
• Drug development will be more precise and cancer treatment will have few toxic side effects,
• DNA mapping at birth becomes the norm,
• Teleportation is tested,

AP INNOVATION & START-UP POLICY

AP govt has placed on web its draft policy promoting innovation and startups in the new state. TePP Outreach centers established in ANU, Guntur and SPMV, Tirupath several years back are probably the only active incubators in the state.

Innovation policy is a part of blueprint on IT Policy and action plan inviting proposals to manage incubators at Visakhapatnam,  Kakinada and Tiruathi. 

Highlights:

• the objective is - an entrepreneur in every family,
• the incubator at Visakhapatnam is a 3 story building with 50,000 sq.ft.
• the fiscal incentives for IT promotion  include patent cost reimbursement to the companies having their headquarters in Andhra Pradesh, subject to a limit of Rs. 5 lakh (0.5 mil) per domestic patent awarded and Rs. 10 lakh (1 Mil) per international patent awarded. 
• The targets -100 Incubators & Accelerators, 5,000 Companies & Start Ups to be incubated, One million sft of Incubation Space to be developed, Venture Capital of Rs 1000 cr to be mobilized for Innovation.
• Colleges shall offer 20% relaxation in attendance and 5% Grace marks for those students who join an incubator,
• distribute Rasberry Pi & Start-up boxes to ignite the imagination of students,
• Innovation and Transformation academy would be established in Tirupati. 
• The government will create an Innovation Fund of Rs.100 crore (1 billion) for entrepreneurs and businesses. The Fund will be in the nature of Fund of Funds. It does not invest directly into startup companies. It shall paricipate in the Capital of Venture Capital Funds, upto 15%. The VC Fund in turn is free to invest in startups located in AP, basing on its own criteria. 
• Government would host a cloud sever that would connect all the incubation centers across the state. This server would be beneficial to all the start-ups at low or nominal costs. Based on the requirement, Government would procure Enterprise versions of key software required for testing and other purposes. These software and Labs can be utilised by the companies in the incubation space at low or nominal charges. 
• An empowered ‘Andhra Pradesh Innovation Council (APInC)’ would be formed with the representatives of industry and the other stakeholders. 

Massive Open Online Courses for Agricultural Professionals

The ‘National Virtual Academy for Indian Agriculture to promote Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) for Agricultural Professionals’ was launched on 4 September at the ICRISAT global headquarters.
The MOOCs will be offered through the National Virtual Academy for Indian Agriculture, an online platform built on an open source software “Open edX,”.

Indian Renaissance & Design Thinking‏

Indian Renaissance is an initiative by Onio to reinstate India's leadership in innovation through holistic thinking in the fields of arts, science and business. Indian Renaissance is an attempt to bring back the 'holistic' 'intuitive' and 'humane' decisioning back into favour. 
The first workshop under this vision - DESIGN THINKING FOR INDIA  in planned (Sept 19-20, 2014) in Mumbai.

Believe in Indian story?
Believe made in India with design & IP from India can compete with Chinese?
Believe Renaissance preceded educational revolution and industrial revolution in Europe?

Join the party. 
Contact: deepshikha@oniodesign.com, +91 750 707 6655

CII Design Excellence Awards

Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has been espousing the cause of design in India and Indian design for more than a decade. Through its National Committee on Design, CII has been relentlessly promoting design within the Indian industry. Besides the annual CII-NID Design Summit, it has various initiatives going on around the year to promote design. As its ongoing pursuit to establish design as a tool for national competitiveness, CII initiated the “CII Design Excellence Awards” in the year of 2011, endorsed by The India Design Council.

The award showcases the celebration of the very best of Indian design commissioned over the past 24 months. It seeks to demonstrate the value of design to the Indian industry and is a true acknowledgement of the design excellence, innovation and originality of Indian Design.

This year (2014) applications are now open for the 4’th CII Design Excellence Awards. Apply Here

The applications for CII Design Excellence Awards can be submitted in any of the four main categories of Visual Communication, Industrial Design, Interaction Design and Mobility Design and their 32 sub-categories. Submissions are open to all companies and manufacturers operating in India. The details of the categories, application process and judging criteria can accessed at www.ciidesign.in

Contact Ms. Pooja Sanchala at 011-45772016 or write to innovation@cii.in 

Gartrner hype model to set Research priorities for catching up economies

In absolute terms India spends more on R&D than Australia, Finland, Israel and many other countries higher on Innovation score. One of the reason is the spend is distributed on larger portfolio with no synergistic relationship. Research and academic institutes take Government funds to work on start-of-art technologies, most of them are at the `Peak of Inflated Expectations' whereas Industry want technologies at `Plateau of  Productivity'.

Taking the 2014 Gartner Hype cycle chart, the sexy projects are Bio-computer interface, Smart robots, Data Science etc. Closed projects include projects on Mobile Health Monitoring, Machine to Machine communication, Big Data etc. And there is no technology for transfer in market  ready areas like Speech recognition, Consumer Telematics. It is not that no research was done in these areas, at the peak of inflated expectations many institutes worked on these projects and declared them as successfully completed. The missing link- no funds to commercial enterprises to develop the research results.

Let us hope the government funding to commercial enterprises for pilot plants, prototyping at pre-commercial stage would get a boost in the coming years.