Status and Prospects of IP Regime in India: Implications for Agricultural Education

Abstract

Intellectual property rights (IPR) are ideas, inventions, and creative expressions based on which there is a public willingness to bestow the status of property, while technology management seeks to foster effective and efficient use of developed technology. In a dynamic global environment with changing industry and competitor landscapes, management of technologies including effective commercialization strategies using the IPR advantages gathers utmost importance.  In an agrarian country like India, the process of IP awareness can be catalysed only be educating the various stakeholders like policy makers, farmers, academia, industry, researchers and consumers about the importance of IPR and technology management. As Indian agriculture is reaching to new vistas of development and business becoming increasingly global, it is time for a "fresh think" to prevail in the IPR debate by creating much more awareness among academia, industry, policy makers and public. The initiatives taken on these lines by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and other governmental and non-governmental agencies are explained in this paper. A paradigm shift in agri-education policies is envisaged to make the students of agriculture and allied courses more aware and competent and also enable them to face more challenges and competition in the changing vistas of IPR and technology management.