Global Cleantech innovation Programme 2016 (GCIP) - Last date 15th May 2016

The United Nations Industrial Development organization (UNIDO) runs a Global Cleantech Innovation Programme in India in association with world's largest clean technology accelerator (Cleantech Open USA) under the aegis of the ministry of MSME. The Ministry of MSME in partnership with UNIDO launched the GCIP Programme in 2013 for promoting Innovations in the Indian SMEs in clean technologies. Achievements of the 2015 
programme:

•  Out of the twenty semifinalists, investors screened six for advanced stage of funding. 
• The national winner and the runners up got the opportunity to showcase their product in international investor summit in California last year. 
• Four participants got the opportunity to showcase their product in 'Festival of Innovations' organized in Rasptrapati Bhawan by the presidential secretariat. 
• An e-book and film detailing the innovations mentored under the programme in last two years has been released and uploaded on the MSME website.

E-book: http://www.dcmsme.gov.in/CLEANOVATORSr.pdf  

Film:  http://www.dcmsme.gov.in/GCIP.html 

Invitations open for 2016:

he programme is now inviting applications from all SMEs in India with Innovative products under the following eligible categories:

•   Energy efficiency

•   Waste to Energy

•   Renewable Energy

•   Water Efficiency

SMEs, emerging startups and entrepreneurs with an innovative technology can submit an online application at the MSME ministry website link http://dcmsme.gov.in/GEFunido.html 

Contact person:

Rishabh Goel

Project Associate

United Nations Industrial Development Organization

Global Cleantech Innovation Program

National Project Office

O/o DC MSME, Ministry of MSME

East Block 7,Level 5,Sector 1, R.K.Puram

New Delhi 110066

Phone/Fax - 011-26167806

Mobile - +91-9599490997

THE 2ND WORLD INVENTION INNOVATION CONTEST (WiC 2016)

Indian Innovators are invited to the 2nd World Invention Innovation Contest, WiC 2016 organized by Korea Invention News (KINEWS) and sponsored by Asia Invention Association (AIA). The event is to be held from June 5 - 6th at the Convention Center - Chung Mu Art Hall in Seoul, Korea.

Registration which will end May 15th . For registration and inquiries, contact:  kinews5@naver.com, President Soung-Mo HONG, Korea Invention News (KINEWS), The Organizing Committee of WiC 2016

India Innovation Challenge 2016

This contest is jointly conducted by Texas Instruments, Inc. (TI) and Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) with support from the Department of Science and Technology (DST). The theme of the contest, in keeping with the start-up buoyancy, is “Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Nation building”. The contest is targeted specifically at encouraging the spirit of entrepreneurship amongst student engineers.
TI together with the DST and IIMB has designed the contest this year to attract the finest minds among student engineers with the best ideas that can quickly evolve into successful start-up companies. The objective is to provide them early stage access to business expertise and nurturing, which are important for a good start-up to go-to-market rapidly.  This year the contest aims to catalyze the Indian manufacturing ecosystem and strengthen the ‘Make in India’ initiative by enabling radical new innovations, trends and young engineering talent.

Important Dates

August 31, 2016	Submission of proposals
September 30, 2016	Announcement of short-list teams
January 31, 2017	Submission of Project Report and Video Demo
March 1, 2017	Announcement of Semi-finalists
March, 2017	Semifinals
April 15, 2017	Announcement of finalists
June, 2017	Finals

Standard Essential Patents and Antitrust regulator in China

Now that Indian regulatory authority has got free hand to investigate abuse of monopoly position by SEP holder, Chinese success in this line needs to be highlighted.

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) is the Chinese competition authority charged with investigating price-related conduct that is anticompetitive, such as cartels, “resale price maintenance” (RPM), and abuses of dominance. The NDRC investigated Qualcomm’s standard-essential patents (SEPs) for certain telecommunication standards and its licensing practices on the basis of complaints filed.  The NDRC formally started its investigation in November 2013 when several dozen NDRC officials raided Qualcomm’s offices in China.  There followed multiple rounds of submissions, intense hearings and negotiations between Qualcomm representatives, NDRC officials, as well as many other interested parties. Qualcomm was found to have abused its dominant position in three ways: excessive pricing, unfair terms, and bundling. The NDRC found that Qualcomm charged unreasonable royalties on Chinese mobile device manufacturers.  This finding is actually split into several claims.  First, Qualcomm refused to provide customers with a list of all patents included in its comprehensive licensing package, resulting in customers being charged for patents that had already expired.  Second, Qualcomm imposed unfair cross-licensing conditions: it forced customers to grant Qualcomm free licenses for their own patents whilst refusing to lower the royalties it imposed in consideration of the value of the patents licensed to it.  Third, the royalty rate was set at a high level and applied to the net wholesale price of the mobile devices concerned. The NDRC also found that Qualcomm forced customers to accept the licensing of Qualcomm’s non-essential patents (for which Qualcomm possibly holds no dominant position) in order to obtain a license for its SEPs. 
On 10 February 2015, China fined Qualcomm CNY6.08 billion (approx. USD975m or EUR870m) for abusive patent licensing practices and imposed several remedies on the company. 
The payoff to China continues. Now, Chip maker Qualcomm has agreed a licensing deal with Zhuhai Ewpe Information Technology in China related to 3G and 4G patents. Under the terms of the agreement, Qualcomm has granted Zhuhai a royalty-bearing licence to develop, manufacture and sell subscriber units covering 3G WCDMA and CDMA2000, and 4G LTE for use in China.

Qualcomm agreed to offer separate licences to certain patents, with licensees whose phones use 4G technology paying a 3.5% royalty rate and those whose handsets incorporate 3G paying 5%.

DeitY patents

Center of Excellences in IP through setups at DeitY and CDAC, Pune  provide a gamut of value added IPR related services to various stakeholders including those from R&D community and academic fraternity. A very significant service being prior art searches.  To complement the services offered by search Centres, Patent Analysis Management System (PAMS) portal (www.ict-ipr.in) is in operation for the last 5 years. The portal offers intellectual property related services especially targeting SMEs, Startups and academia focusing on ICT sector as well as disseminates knowledge related to IPR issues and services. 

For Prior-art search in ICT is provided free of charge. Registration essential.
List of Patents generated from DeitY funded projects can be downloaded. 48 patents listed. 

Global Biopharma Innovation- ranking

ITIF released a new report ranking nations on bio-pharma innovations. The parameters chosen are:
1. Government R&D as percentage of GDP.
2. Drug price control.
3. Data exclusivity.

With these parameters the ranking about India is obvious- at the bottom. But there will be more global innovations coming from India than those ranked higher,

• the R&D investment in India is significantly higher than most others in terms of productivity of R&D investment in India. If  cumulative R&D man-hours is an indicator India's rank would b much higher. 
• Relationship between price control of essential drugs , mostly generic versions and innovation is not academically established.
• Data exclusivity is a perfectly justifiable revenue maximization effort of commercial firms, but there is weak link between data exclusivity benefits of commercial firms and source of innovation- public R&D.   

International Exhibition of Economic and Scientific Innovations INTARG ,14th to 15th June 2016 , Katowice, Poland.

Indian Innovators are invited to International Exhibition of Economic and Scientific Innovations INTARG which will take place from 14th to 15th June 2016 in Katowice, Poland. 

Please send the application to intarg@haller.pl . You can also visit website where you will find all necessary information http://intarg.haller.pl/o-targach,i118,j1.html

You can also see a short movie of the previous edition of INTARG 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDASQmrxTak .

For assistance, Indian Innovators can also contact Indian Innovators Association.

Standard Essential Patents and Monopoly position.

When a patented technology is incorporated in a standard, adoption of the standard eliminates alternative to the patented technology. Ericsson has taken Indian assemblers of smart phones to court for their refusal to pay royalty for SEP (Standard Essential Patents). Phone manufacturers complained of unreasonable demands by the SEP owner both on royalty rate and base unit for enforcing royalty. FRAND terms for SEP are under debate in USA and Europe. IEEE and manufacturers have taken different positions on this.

China is said to have reduced the royalty rates on SEP by bringing in their Competitive commission. Indian manufacturers also approached Competitive Commission of India and as expected SEP owners did not like it and questioned CCI role in patent infringement.

Now Delhi High Court ruled that  that the Competition Commission of India (CCI) can continue its investigation into Ericsson’s alleged anti competitive practices. 

“In my view, there is no irreconcilable repugnancy or conflict between the Competition Act and the Patents Act. And, in absence of any irreconcilable conflict between the two legislations, the jurisdiction of CCI to entertain complaints for abuse of dominance in respect of Patent rights cannot be ousted.”

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Startup India action plan

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Objective To provide an equal platform to Startups (in the manufacturing sector) vis-à-vis the experienced entrepreneurs/ companies in public procurement.

 

Details Typically, whenever a tender is floated by a Government entity or by a PSU, very often the eligibility condition specifies either “prior experience” or “prior turnover”. Such a stipulation prohibits/ impedes Startups from participating in such tenders. At present, effective April 1, 2015 Central Government, State Government and PSUs have to mandatorily procure at least 20% from the Micro Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME). In order to promote Startups, Government shall exempt Startups (in the manufacturing sector) from the criteria of “prior experience/ turnover” without any relaxation in quality standards or technical parameters. The Startups will also have to demonstrate requisite capability to execute the project as per the requirements and should have their own manufacturing facility in India.