NorthCap University to Organise National Conference on Varying Dimensions of Intellectual Property Rights

With the exponential growth in the Intellectual Property industry in the last five years, the field has now become an aspiring one for law graduates. India is inclining to be the centre of technological and R&D which are nothing but Intellectual Property creation. Intellectual Property Rights industry provides a boost in career, remunerative jobs, international exposure, and association with big companies. As per the current market needs, this field provides a wide horizon of recession-proof job opportunities with all certainty.

At the same time, the generation of Intellectual Property largely takes place at the Universities or academies. Valuable IPs at the academies can be generated easily from such research by further modelling it to have industrial applicability. But even after funding and hardships of the researcher, the invention or the conclusion of their work go in vain. The reason being lack of an ecosystem, which can direct the minds of the researchers perpetually towards creating as many IPs from their work as possible. The NorthCap University has started evolving different IP strategies, policies and ecosystems in terms of effective facilitating services to students and faculties. In this background, the IPR Cell of The NorthCap University is organising a National Conference on the topic ‘Varying Dimensions of Intellectual Property Rights’ in collaboration with ‘Intellectual Property, India’.

The conference seeks to bring academicians, scholars, students, practitioners together to celebrate the engaged scholarship and reflective learning that is taking place in our University. The objectives of the conference are:

• To provide a platform to diagnose innovation and research on contemporary issues of national and international relevance leading to the creation of IPR.
• Developing an attitude of prudent management practices and promoting an IPR culture.
• To train about the mechanism of accessing and using IP information for further research and development in developing new products and processes and for their use in business development

The sub-themes of the conference are

• SEPs & FRAND Licensing- an emerging trend
• Data Exclusivity of TRIPS Agreement
• Conceptual Issues in Patenting of life forms
• Originality under Copyrights Law
• Digital Technology & Copyright issues
• Protection of Trade Dress
• Geographical Indication and Traditional knowledge
• Academic Research and Copyright issues
• Copyright and Entertainment Industry
• Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers right
• Designs and Trade Secrets
• Competition Law and IPR
• IPR and Management
• IPR and Pharmaceuticals
• Emerging Concerns in IPR Regime
• Internet-related issues on IPR
• Problems and Encounters in filing application for Copyright, Trademark, Patent & other IPR
• IPR Dispute Settlement and WTO
• Software protection: International instruments & trends

However, in today’s century, ‘Gen-Y’ is considered the key person for laying down a future roadmap for creating, nurturing, building and strengthening creativity and innovation. For them, this conference will be an opportunity to engage in academic dialogue with peers and the faculty. Deviating from merely adhering to an austere legal scholarship, the conference intends to be interdisciplinary – hence presenting an opportunity to all to explore how other disciplines conduct research to create new knowledge and understanding about the dimension of IP, thereby inspiring the next generation of scholars.

The upshot of the Conference

• It will help participants in understanding how a property can be created by a human mind and how such kind of property will give him recognition and what steps the government has taken for its protection.
• It will help participants in understanding the technicalities involved between pirated and original products and thereby restrain counterfeiting of the products in our society.
• Having a fair knowledge and idea about IPR motivates participants to own their own startups which ultimately improves the situation of unemployment.
• Enhanced IPR awareness amongst the citizens including the students would result in an increased IP portfolio of the country and this would mean an increase in the IP’s generated domestically, increased competitiveness of the Indian industry both domestically and globally as well as economic growth.
• Focus on enhancing access to healthcare, food security and environmental protection, among others. Having a fair knowledge about IPR, any infringement in these sectors could be brought in the notice of the competent authorities, by the students.

This Conference is intended to benefit the participants on an emerging area of IPR, to understand the technicalities involved and the transformation of innovations into proprietary assets. We look forward to participation from all over India.

About the author:

Unanza Gulzar is a Coordinator at the IPR Cell at The NorthCap University. She is an LL.B and LLM from the University of Kashmir specialising in Business laws besides holding Bachelor’s degree in science. Gulzar has over four years of teaching experience and has presented 20 research papers in various seminars and conferences.

Note: The views expressed in this article are solely author’s own and do not reflect/represent those of Shiksha