Guide to local production of WHO-recommended Handrub Formulations

Part A is intended to guide a local producer in the actual preparation of the formulation.

Part B contains important safety and cost information and incorporates information from the WHO Guidelines on Hand Hygiene in Health Care (2009).

- Access the publication

Expression of Interest (EOI) for Co Developing and manufacturing Devices for COVID-19 Pandemic

Many technologies on offer from SCTIMST: https://www.sctimst.ac.in/COVID-19/

SCTIMST invites manufacturers/start ups/social groups who are interested in working with Institute to co-develop and manufacture medical devices on a fast track mode to support the distressing situation the epidemic COVID 19 has created. Please join us for development and manufacture of devices such as :

• Ambu bag based Ventilator
• Ventilator Sharing Kit
• Battery Operated Assistive Breathing Unit
• Isolation Pods
• Disposable Safety Face Shield
• Deployable Field Units

For further details, please contact Technology Business Division : tbd@sctimst.ac.in
Call us : Mr S. Balram (9249402311)/ Ms Sandhya C.G (9895098086)
License to WIPRO 3D is in news.

Working around strong patents - 3M vs Venus

In the year 2013, 3M successfully blocked Venus Safety & Helath private lts from manufacturing a product infringing its patent on  “Flat Fold Personal Respiratory Protection Device'. (ref: https://indiankanoon.org/doc/194174010/)
Venus has been in this field long enough to learn to work around the patent. Today is is one of India's largest manufacturer of masks.

Auditing the Auditor

In today’s world where corporate scandals often make front page news, fraud prevention and detection are becoming a priority for management and decision-makers. Typically, a large majority of midsize to large organisations consider their internal and external auditors as the pivotal tool for uncovering fraud and taking preventive measures to minimise the risk of loss incurred due to a fraud. However, this doesn’t imply that independent auditors often identify fraud, in fact, the opposite is true in many cases. ACFE’s Report to the Nations points out the fact that auditors rarely find fraud – internal audit detects fraud 15% of the time, while external audit merely 4%.

A consultation paper to examine the existing provisions of law and make suitable amendments therein to enhance audit independence and accountability has been placed on the Ministry’s website at www.mca.gov.in. The paper states:
Broadly, the auditor’s financial or other interest in client’s business inappropriately influence his judgement or behaviour and a conflict of interest always exists, which may result in the auditor turning a blind eye to potential risk or at the extreme ignore an impending/occurred fraud. 2.1 There is self-interest threat due to reliance of auditor on the fee from the client. This is manifested in various ways and results in various negative consequences.
 Economic Times dealt on response of big 4 audit firms- Thermometers cannot prevent heart attacks.

Read the worst 10 accounting frauds-https://www.accounting-degree.org/scandals/

Central Electronics Ltd (CEL) on sale.

CEL is for sale.

PRELIMINARY INFORMATION MEMORANDUM (PIM) AND INVITATION OF EXPRESSION OFINTEREST (EOI) FOR  PROPOSED STRATEGIC DISINVESTMENT OF 100% SHAREHOLDING  OF  CENTRAL ELECTRONICS LIMITED (CEL) HELD BY  THE PRESIDENT OF INDIA  THROUGH  DEPARTMENT OF SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH (DSIR),  MINISTRY OF SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY (With transfer of management control) is placed on web. Last date 16-3-2020.

CEL is pioneer in the country in the field of Solar Photovoltaic (SPV) with the distinction of having developed India’s first Solar cell in 1977 and first Solar panel in 1978 as well as commissioning India’s first solar plant in 1992. More recently, it has developed and manufactured the first crystalline flexible solar panel specially for use on the passenger train roofs in 2015. Its solar products have been qualified to International Standards IEC 61215/61730. CEL developed India’s first indigenous axle-counter in 1980’s in collaboration with IIT Delhi and Railway Design and Standards Organizations (RDSO) and has subsequently developed digital axle counters. Currently the range of RDSO approved products for railway sector includes Universal Axle Counter, Single Section Digital Axle Counter – 710P, High Availability Single Section Digital Axle Counter-720P, and Multi-Section Digital Axle Counter -730. CEL is the Pioneer in manufacturing of different types of PZT elements, in India, since 1976. CEL manufactures various grade of Piezo-ceramics elements for low power as well as high power application including PZT-5A, PZT-5H, PZT-5J for low power applications and PZT-4, PZT-8 for high power applications. DEPARTMENT OF SCIENTIFIC & INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH14 PIM FORDISINVESTMENT OF 100% EQUITY SHAREHOLDING OF CELCEL is one of the very few companies, worldwide, that have pioneered the production of the ferrite phase shifters for C- and X- bands developed in collaboration with DRDO. CEL is the only manufacturer of phase shifters in the country and has developed various production facilities for meeting the bulk demand of the phase shifters.

As on 31st March 2019, CEL’s paid up capital is Rs. 69.22 crores and Net Worth is Rs. 75.99 crores. Land asset is 2,41,614 Square yards industrial   Area, Sahibabad   Ghaziabad-201010 (UP). Tangible Assets are valued at 34Crore and revenue 240 crores. CEL has a state of the art module manufacturing line having installed capacity of 38MW (10MW in manual line and 28 MW in automated line) and is known for its high quality modules. CEL is manufacturer of some of the oldest functioning modules in the country. Solar Photovoltaic Modules are manufactured using Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells.

Liabilities including commitments are around 100 crores.

FDI in R&D in India-Reji K. Joseph, Biswajit Dhar & Akoijam Amitkumar Singh

How much foreign direct investment is taking place in R&D in India? 
MNCs using Indian talent for research but innovation comes out of development in other countries!!!
Is DSIR recognition relevant?

Interesting aspects highlighed in this paper.
1.RDFDI inflows into India during the period of analysis (2004-16)  was Rs. 54862.6 Mn. This constitutes 0.4 per cent of total FDI inflows into India.
2. RDFDI was concentrated in four sectors—ICT, natural sciences and engineering (NSE), pharmaceuticals and clinical research, which accounted for more than 80 per cent of total RDFDI.
3. Only one‐fourth of RDFDI has come to DSIR recognised firms. None of the firms in the ICT sector, which received the maximum RDFDI inflows, has DSIR recognised in‐house R&D units.
4.The share of FDI companies in corporate sector R&D is only 3 per cent.
5. Data collected from USPTO on number of patents granted in which India is an inventor country and assignee country shows that there is a growing trend of companies based in foreign countries taking patent on the outputs of R&D conducted in India. Since 2002, there has been a steady decline in the share of India based inventions receiving India as the assignee country status. Of late, only 15 per cent of the patents granted by USPTO in which India is mentioned as an inventor country, having India as the assignee country; this share was 58 per cent in 2002. 

Regulations that impact innovations

Public policy and private demand for innovations.

How nations leverage state procurement to promote local innovations

The fine art of supporting pre-commercial Reserach

https://www.slideshare.net/indiainvents/promoting-innovations-with-state-procurement-of-rd?fbclid=IwAR13zmvvfJJoWpYDcnoa056GzrczHPbiTKKJZsWb7l20fjYSEWWYFlflFIw

WTO does not allow state subsidy in R&D but every nation is spending more on R&D

100 Best Innovations 2019- nominations invited

Innovations in mining not related to production from mining

This WIPO working paper explored the recent boom in mining innovation.
Australia, Canada, China, Europe and the United States of America concentrate the largest share of global innovation measured as mining R&D expenditures, exploration expenditures or mining technologies in patent data.
Our analysis showed how mining innovation spurs along the mining production lifecycle and value chain. In particular, recent mining innovation focused in exploration and refining technologies. However, some subsectors have contributed more to the recent mining innovation uptick more than others. In particular, there has been a decrease of the from refining technologies share in favor of those from exploration and transport technologies. We interpret these results as a direct consequence of the demand surge of mineral products in the same period. We also observe an increase of automation innovation in the mining sector. These trends are not new for the industry, which observed an increase in the 1990s and early 2000s. Nonetheless, we now observe a remarkable automation uptick.
 The distribution of economies contributing to mining technologies does not corresponds with the typical mining producing ones. Only China and the United States of America lead both in mining output and innovation. Australia, Canada and Norway also offer a relatively balanced mining output and innovation. Other typical mining economies struggle to be present in the innovation spotlight. The Russian Federation, Brazil and Chile are probably the best among these, while the other ones generate very limited innovation outcomes.
 Indeed, mining innovation is more likely to spur in functioning innovation systems not necessarily based on mining operation countries. Many developed economies not particularly relevant in mining production contribute in a great extent to the global mining innovation. Japan, the Republic of Korea and many European economies are the top ones among these.
 Traditionally mining producing and specialized economies such as Chile, South Africa and the Russian Federation have all diminished their mining innovation specialization. Conversely, Australia, Canada, the United States of America and Brazil have increased their mining relative specialization, which also means the contributed more to the global mining innovation intensity surge. Most of the increase in the exploration subsector is coming from the increase in specialization. Australia, Chile and the Republic of Korea increased their relative specialization in this subsector and are probably among the largest contributors to the exploration booming relatively to the other sectors. On mining transport, Chile and Australia were the only country improving their mining transport specialization.
The US, Canada and Australia, are more specialized in automation compared to lower-middle income and uppermiddle income nations. The selected economies are fairly weak in environment specialization. Only Chile, the Republic of Korea and the United States of America show a positive RSI for environmental technologies. 

SEPs in connected cars, connected homes.

SEPs (Standard Essential Patents) till now familiar in telecom like 5G now enter homes and automobiles.
 Patented essential wireless technology will transform an automobile into a connected car, a meter into a smart meter, a house into a smart home – the product of today into that of tomorrow.
Avanci a patent pool firm offering SEPs for connected cars, connected homes, connected meters. Kasim Alfalahi is the Founder and CEO of Avanci. In his previous role as Chief Intellectual Property Officer for Ericsson, Kasim led the company’s licensing and patent development worldwide – an industry-leading practice he built over 20 years. During this time, he and his team established the concept of patents as marketable business assets, transforming Ericsson from a net-payer to a net-receiver of royalty income. Under his direction, patent licensing became fundamental to Ericsson’s global success – bringing in $1.7 billion in revenue in 2015.

IIIF2019-Report

 The three day event was held in 10,000 sq.ft exhibition hall of NSIC located in Kushaiguda industrial area and attended by about 5,000 visitors who spent on the average 2hrs in the fair. Innovators from 25 countries, India, China, Macao, Philippines, Malaysia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Morocco, Turkey, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Portugal, Germany, Poland, Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, France, Romania, Moldova, Canada, USA and Brazil  displayed their innovations. NOSTC selected 35 student innovators for this international fair from out of 100 finalists at National competition. They came from different parts of the country, Gujarat, Nagaland, J&K, Bihar, Delhi, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

The fair was inaugurated on 1^st December by President of Indian Innovators Association, Dr ASRao, Dr Zengpei Xuan China, Edyta Wołczyk  Poland, YS Rajan Head of International Jury and Jayesh Ranjan IAS, Principal Secretary to Government of Telangana, Industries & Commerce (I&C) Department, & Information Technology, Electronics and Communications (ITE&C) Department. After honouring jury and release of book `Creating Demand for Local Innovations’ Jayesh Ranjan talked briefly about initiatives of Telangana state in creating dynamic, vibrant environment for innovators & investors.

Simply Science organised Science Quiz, Indian innovator Mohan Sarma signed MOU with Zimbabwe/ South Africa for technology transfer and VNRVJIET signed research partnership agreement with Gram Bazaar. Several leads on business / research partnerships/ patenting support were also received. Dr Zengpei visited and addressed student of VNRVJIET on Chinese Innovation System. Mr Winfried visited and addressed youth at CCMB on science and youth. Market exploration visits arranged for visitors under Start-Up exchange program.

Mr Iftekhar Pathan, Serial investor was chief guest at the awards function on 3^rd Day. Awards given by NSIC officials and IFIA members from China, Iraq, Poland and Portugal. Dr ASRao gave special awards for best exhibitor (Zen technologies), best incubator (IITK SIIC FIRST),Innovation Champion( Ms Annie Vijaya, Program Manager , TSIC ), best entrepreneur (Ram Kumar Verma, Native Araku Coffee), Rural income enhancement award (Jagarlamudi Durga Prasad) and IYIIA 2019 award to Mrs Kanak Lata, a dedicated agriculture scientist. Dr Nikhil Agarwal, Chief Executive Officer, Foundation for Innovation & Research in Science & Technology (FIRST) invited IIA to organise IIIF2010 at IIT, Kanpur, 27-28th ^November 2020.

Defense Reserach labd in India offer patents - royalty free

The Indian Defence Research Development Organization (DRDO) has formulated a new policy that allows the Organization to offer complete access to its patents filed in India without any licensing or royalty fees.  According to the notification, an application for licensing must be made through the DRDO website and a processing fee of INR 1000/- must be deposited. The Applicant is also required to disclose its financial and technical capabilities in a comprehensive manner, along with the application. All applications will undergo a screening process to determine whether the applicant has met the eligibility requirements and has provided all the required information. On completion of the same, a non-exclusive license will be granted for a period of 1 year. The Licensee is obligated to furnish details to DRDO, every year, regarding Working of Patents – Form 27. On completion of one year, the license can be renewed without incurring any additional costs. DRDO’s patent portfolio primarily consists of inventions related to missile technology, aeronautics, naval systems, life sciences, armaments, combat engineering, electronics and communication material.

List of patents.

knowledge is global but innovation is local

Knowledge creation is spreading to more and more countries. For most of the period from 1970 to 2000 only three countries – the United States (U.S.), Japan and Germany accounted for two thirds of all patenting activity worldwide. When the remaining Western European economies are included the share reached some 90 percent. But in the years since, the rest of the world has come from almost nowhere to account for almost one third of all patenting activity. Published scientific data have spread even more widely, with the rest of the world going from less than a quarter of all such publication to around half over the last 20 years.

China and the Republic of Korea are largely responsible for the rising share of new areas in knowledge production and innovation: they account for over 20 percent of patents registered in the years 2015–2017, compared to under 3 percent in 1990–1999. Other countries, notably Australia, Canada, India and Israel, have also contributed to the global spread of innovation. Many middle-income countries, however, and all lower-income countries continue to have substantially lower levels of patenting activity.

Innovation is geographically concentrated in a limited number of areas. The emerging landscape of global hotspots and niche clusters shows that inventive and scientific activity within each country is persistently concentrated in a few large, cosmopolitan and prosperous urban areas. In the U.S., hotspots around New York, San Francisco and Boston accumulated roughly a quarter of all U.S. patents filed from 2011 to 2015. In China, those around Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen increased their share from 36 percent to 52 percent of all Chinese patents during the same period.

Less than 19 percent of all inventive and scientific output worldwide is generated by inventors or researchers located outside hotspots and niche clusters. Despite the big change in the global innovation picture, more than 160 countries – the vast majority – still generate little innovation activity and do not host any hotspot or niche cluster.

Source: WIPO report 2019.

International Innovation fair (IIIF 2019)

IIIF 2019 brings  largest confluence of Innovators, Entrepreneurs, Start ups from all across the globe.

Why India is reluctant to sign RCEP?

India seemed to have pulled out of RCEP. Regional comprehensive Partnership Agreement (RCEP) is a proposed free trade agreement (FTA) between 10 ASEAN countries and their six FTA partners, namely Australia, China, India, Japan, Korea and New Zealand. It accounts for 25% of global GDP, 30% of global trade, 26% of FDI flows and 45% of the total population. From India’s point of view RCEP is critical. RCEP countries account for almost 27% of India’s total trade. Exports to RCEP account for about 15% of India’s total exports and imports from RCEP comprise 35% of India’s total imports. India runs a trade deficit with ASEAN as well as the partner countries of RCEP. India’s trade deficit with the bloc has risen from $9 billion in FY05 to $83 billion in FY17, of which China alone accounts for over 60% of the deficit. The primary reason is India's limited success with FTAs.

India’s experience with FTAs

Regional trade agreements (RTAs) have become increasingly prevalent since the early 1990s. RTAs cover more than half of international trade and operate alongside global multilateral agreements under the World Trade Organization (WTO). The first eleven years (1995-2005) of the WTO were paralleled by a tripling of RTAs from 58 to 188. Currently, 455 RTAs are in force globally. India is one among top countries in Asia with the maximum number of FTAs either in operation or under negotiation or proposed. According to the Asian Development Bank Institute, as of now, India has 42 trade agreements (including preferential agreements) either in effect or signed or under negotiation or proposed. Out of this, 13 are in effect, one is signed but not yet implemented, 16 under negotiation and 12 are proposed/under consultation or study. Most of India’s existing FTAs are with Asian countries which are quite different from each other in terms of the level of their economic development. The major FTAs that India has signed and implemented so far include South Asia Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA), India-ASEAN Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA), India-Korea Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) and India-Japan CEPA.

Indian exports to SAFTA countries have increased faster than its imports from them leading to a significant rise in trade surplus with these economies from about US$ 4 billion to US$ 21 billion. The maximum growth in exports to SAFTA region has been recorded with Bangladesh and Nepal. contrary to India-SAFTA trade India’s imports from ASEAN has increased at a significantly higher rate than Indian exports to ASEAN. Another important point worth to be noted is that the imports from ASEAN grew much faster than India’s imports from the world. The faster growth in imports has resulted in a significant increase in India’s trade deficit with ASEAN from less than US$ 8 billion in 2009-10 to about US$ 22 billion in 2018-19. With CEPA, India’s trade deficit with Korea from US$ 5 billion in 2009-10 to US$ 12 billion 2018-19. As in the case of ASEAN and Korea, India’s trade deficit with Japan has not only increased during2011-12 to 2018-19 but grown faster than India’s trade deficit with the world.

India seems to have underutilised its existing FTAs. The percentage of India’s international trade routed through the preferential route/FTAs is very low. According to the Asian Development Bank, the utilisation rate of India’s FTAs varies between 5% and 25%, which is one of the lowest in Asia. Moreover, exports to FTA partner countries and non-partner countries have grown at the same pace. Complex rules of origin criteria, lack of information on FTAs, higher compliance costs and administrative delays dissuade exporters from using preferential routes. The compliance cost of availing benefits under these FTAs is so high that exporters prefer using the normal route. India has actively pursued FTAs with several major trading partners in the past without benefitting much.

NITI AAYOG recommendation

Before getting into any multilateral trade deal india should

·        firstly, review and assess its existing FTAs in terms of benefits to various stakeholders like industry and consumers, trade complementarities and changing trade patterns in the past decade.

·        Second, negotiating bilateral FTAs with countries where trade complementarities and margin of prefeence is high may benefit India in the long run.

·        Third, higher compliance costs nullify the benefits of margin of preference, thus reducing compliance cost and administrative delays is extremely critical to increase utilisation rate of FTAs.

·        Fourth, proper safety and quality standards should be set to avoid dumping of lower quality hazardous goods into the Indian market.

·        Fifth, circumvention of rules of origin should be strictly dealt with by the authorities. In case of India- SriLanka FTA, Srilanka had started exporting copper to India by under invoicing of imported scrap to in order to show higher value addition for qualifying for preferential rates under the FTA. Thus, Rules of Origin (ROO) norms can easily be circumvented by simple accounting manipulation to flood Indian markets.The over-arching conclusion of this report is that FTAs have to be signed keeping two things in mind, mutually reciprocal terms and focusing on products and services with maximum export potential.

Patent amendment rules 2019

The Patents (Amendment) Rules, 2019 have now come into effect through a notification by the Central Government on the 18th of September 2019 in its official gazette. A major change brought about by the new rules is that now in addition to startups and applicants designating India as ISA or electing India as IPEA in their corresponding PCT applications, the option of seeking expedited examination is now available to a wide category of applicants. According to the Patents (Amendment) Rules, 2019 rule 24 C is substituted to read as follows:

“…(b) that the applicant is a startup; or

(c) that the applicant is a small entity; or

(d) that if the applicant is a natural person or in the case of joint applicants, all the applicants are natural persons, then the applicant or at least one of the applicants is a female; or

(e) that the applicant is a department of the Government; or

(f) that the applicant is an institution established by a Central, Provincial or State Act, which is owned or controlled by the Government; or

(g) that the applicant is a Government company as defined in clause (45) of section 2 of the Companies Act, 2013 (18 of 2013); or

(h) that the applicant is an institution wholly or substantially financed by the Government;

Explanation:- For the purpose of this clause, the term ‘substantially financed’ shall have the same meaning as in the Explanation to sub-section (1) of section 14 of the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (Duties, Powers and Conditions of Service) Act, 1971(56 of 1971); or

(i) that the application pertains to a sector which is notified by the Central Government on the basis of a request from the head of a department of the Central Government.:

Provided that public comments are invited before any such notification; or

(j) that the applicant is eligible under an arrangement for processing a patent application pursuant to an agreement between Indian Patent Office and a foreign Patent Office.

Explanation:- The patentability of patent applications filed under clause (j) above will be in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Act.”

Source: banana IP