Understanding Indian Performance on IPR front: Towards an inclusive innovation system1

Anil K Gupta 
With Arati Karmakar, Vikas S Chandak and Manish Anand

Enactment of property rights has been at the heart of civilisational evolution in different parts of the world.   Most property rights are multilayered.   For instance, while we may own a plot of land but we cannot use it for constructing any building without various kinds of permissions required from relevant authorities.   If we dig a foundation to build a house, and find a pot of gold, it does not belong to us.  State owns it.   While digging a tube well, if we find oil or trace elements, these again belong to the state.  Similarly, if a country had to park a satellite in the geo-stationary orbit, just above our plot of land, no rent will accrue to us.   Thus, the rights to resources below the ground and above the ground do not belong to us except within reasonable limits and as per appropriate national and international laws.   The air column above our land provides medium for broadcasting or other waves to pass through.  This again cannot be objected to.   Unlike some of the other intangible properties (for consuming or using which, we don’t need anybody’s permission) the intellectual property provides often a negative right.   We have right to exclude others but not to use it without appropriate approvals.   For instance, we may have a patent on a drug for asthma.   We have no right to manufacture or market this drug without approval from appropriate authorities.   But have a right to exclude others from doing so for a given period of time unless authorized.   

The intellectual property rights have existed in every society from time immemorial.  There have been taboos on disclosing certain kind of knowledge lest it ceases to have effect.   Trade secrets of this kind were culturally sanctioned in most societies.   At the same time, it is true that the proportion of knowledge which was in public domain was often much larger than kept in private domain.   Social institutions, sanctified by various moral traditions did prevent certain social classes from gaining access to specific aspect of knowledge systems.   Shahjehan exercised his property rights on the design of Taj Mahal by getting the hands of the workers cut, lest they tried to make another replica of the same.   It is reported that in Murshidabad, West Bengal, there was a tradition of sending baskets of a particular variety of mangoes to the rulers but only after puncturing the seed with a thin needle. Idea being that these mangoes should not be cultivated outside the local region. A mechanical way of terminating genetic property of the mango.  Among Zunis, a native American tribe in New Mexico, a tradition is reported under which even brothers and sisters could not copy the design of a potter without his or her prior permission.   All these examples illustrate tendency to exclude others from copying or using knowledge and/or associated resources without permission.   

Discrimination has existed often on grounds other than creativity or innovation.   Entitlements to acquire knowledge and disseminate it have been distributed asymmetrically in all societies.   The transition to knowledge economy has reduced these asymmetries and improves the access through various means of communication and democratic institutions.

After industrial revolution, the nature, scope and extent of intellectual property protection, of course, increased manifold.   The corporate control over intellectual property rights in many technological domains generated anxiety among the civil society members about possible implications for democratic growth of ideas, innovations and creativity.  The open source movement in software industry and ‘creative commons’ in cultural industry have demonstrated a strong desire in the society for not only keeping knowledge in public domain but also expanding this domain through collaboration in creating new knowledge.   Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have expanded the scope of such collaboration across time and space in most creative manner.  The general purpose license (GPL) in such creative products provides certain obligations on users and also puts certain restrictions for specific purposes.   It is possible to combine intellectual property regime with the open source movement in various flexible ways. Societal expectation for production of common and public goods may thus be met without impairing the incentives for individual and collective producers of new applied knowledge to seek limited time protection.   

The competitive advantage through intellectual property protection may accrue through several means, (a) early technological lead which generates consumer preference, (b) brand identity through which both confidence and distinctiveness may be contributed in the mind of users, (c) development of industry standard through technological innovation which may give early head start , (d) creation of technology/industrial networks through sharing, licensing the technologies or joint development and therefore carving out market niches, (e) developing platform technologies which make subsequent derivative users depend upon the primary technology (Recombinant DNA technologies, embedded chips), (f) forging strategic alliances within or across the nations to safeguard certain technologies, (g) creating a combination of patent, trademark, copyright, design protection, etc., to harness higher competitive advantage and (h) to provide facilities for derivative users to design technologies around the protected base technologies to ensure continued demand and dominance in the market place.   There are several other ways in which competitive advantage may accrue by combining different economic and non-economic instruments along with property rights.  

But it is not enough to think of only competitive advantage. We have to also explore cooperative and collaborative advantage. Can pooling of patents lead to higher value for each market? Can we decide to compete to compete in market place and cooperate in knowledge or learning space?   

Cooperation and competition may simultaneously take place in different knowledge and resource domains.  There is a famous example of Lyon town in France where an interesting model of this kind emerged in 18th century.   This town was famous for silk which was woven and dyed in various colours for high class fashion oriented markets.   One of the problems that weavers noted was that the demand for various designs of silk was fluctuating.  When one particular design was in great demand, the others faced slump.  The weavers competed in the product market and fortunes of some rose high at any point of time compared to others who suffered.   The weaver also had a practice to train their children through apprenticeship.  The challenge was to put one’s child with someone whose silk may not be in high demand now but who might have an up turn in near future.   Therefore, while weavers competed in the market place of silk, they cooperated in the learning and knowledge space.  The child of currently successful weaver may become an apprentice with a weaver failing concurrently.   This model has implications even today so that competitive advantage has to conceptualize along side the collaborative advantage that joint production of IP/open source technologies may provide.   

Emergence of stronger intellectual property regime in India is a consequence of globalization and post WTO harmonization or national laws.  Whether stronger IPRs generate more innovations may be debate but the pressure from the developed countries to safeguard their IPs in the emerging economies has certainly influenced the R&D expenditures by domestic firms, enterprises and even individuals.    

In part one of this paper, we present the evidence of increasing awareness about the need to protect intellectual property rights in the post WTO period.   Dr. Mashelkar has been a pioneer in creating patent literacy.   It is not surprising that CSIR under his leadership has surpassed all other organizations in the country with regard to patent filing.   In part two, the experience of Honey Bee database is briefly reviewed (the detailed experience of National Innovation Foundation (NIF) is provided separately. Some of the key lessons are summarized in part three.
PART ONE
How has India performed in intellectual property rights protection?  

The distribution of 4639 patents granted to resident as well as non-resident Indians working in Indian and foreign organizations is given in figure one.  The role of public sector in India is most pronounced.  In table 1, we notice that the rate of patent filing and grant has increased significantly after 1995. The numbers have almost trebled every five years.   In table 2, among the Indian organizations, CSIR is far ahead of the others in getting patents in US.  About 20 per cent of all the patents granted belong to CSIR, with private sector having hardly around 15 per cent share. The most distinctive aspect is the share of universities and research institutions which is less than two per cent.  The nature of partnership among different group of Indians and foreign inventors is given in table 3.   Over the years, partnership between Indian and foreign inventors has gone up consistently, however, there seems to be significant lack of collaboration within resident and non-resident Indians.   For some strange reasons, non-resident Indians and foreign inventors have not cooperated much in filing patents except in collaboration with resident Indians.  The overall picture highlights a need to strengthen the partnership between Indians in India and abroad.   An analysis of the assignees reveals that the share of foreign firms is more than half while that of Indian private firms is less than 20 per cent.    The overall share of foreign firms and all the other Indian institutions/individuals is almost equal.  The ownership and assignment patterns are marginally different, with latter having slightly higher than 50 per cent share.   The state wise trend is slightly misleading because many times the address of the inventor is given care of the attorneys or the headquarters of the company/institution in which they work.  Despite this limitation, it is obvious that unlike Maharashtra and Karnataka, Gujarat has much less share in patents despite its economic strength.   The support by state governments as well as the buoyancy of knowledge based Industries may partly explain the strength.  When we look at the share of key public and private enterprises other than CSIR, in table 6, we find that STMicroelectronics Ltd., Ranbaxy and Dr.Reddy’s Research Foundation are the companies which have the major share.  Compared to previous years, a new company, Biocon Ltd. has entered the scene in a significant way.  It shows that private sector is picking up but it has a long way to go.  In table seven, we get an important insight about the corporate character of R&D in India.  It is the international companies having R&D labs in India hiring Indian scholars who are getting majority of the patents.   

The drug and pharmaceutical sector followed by computers, electronics and chemicals are the three major sectors in which patents have been issued to Indians (see table 8).  Molecular biology and agriculture are the next major group.   These trends are not very different from the international trends.   The nature of inventive activity in India by Indians is somewhat different both in terms of actors and also the sectors. The strategic alliances have not yet begun to be forged between private and public sector to produce IPs of considerable market value.  Historically, majority of the R&D activities in India were located in public sector.   However, the market orientation is of course, quite limited in such organizations. Hence, the need for public-private partnership.  The role of NGOs and other civil society organizations is very limited.   NIF and Honey Bee Network are exceptions as we will see next.

I did another study in 1997-98 on the total world patents on herbal products with the help of Derwent Pharmaceutical Index.  This is one of the largest patent databases on pharmaceuticals.   It was found that Chinese held 45 per cent of the total patents, 20 per cent by Japanese and 16 per cent by Russians followed by the rest of the European countries.  India figured nowhere.  However, what this comparison does not reveal is the share that Chinese have in US and European markets.  One in five Americans has used Chinese medicine.  Through the brand and trademark protections, Chinese medicine has created a niche, which Indian traditional medicines have failed to create in the world markets so far.  
PART TWO

A philosophy, a value, a social movement:

Honey Bee Network began to evolve and bring in large number of people in its fold at village level as well as at professional or institutional level.   For some peculiar reasons, majority of the members were drawn not from NGOs but from NGIs (Non Governmental Individuals).  It is natural that when a network grows, contestation around the ideology, belief systems, values espoused as well as practiced, is bound to arise.  Some people disassociate because the constraints of accountability imposed by the philosophy appear too much.   Sometimes, the network also loosens its links with people with whom compatibility of values becomes difficult.  But the major energy comes through inclusion rather than exclusion.   Over the last 20 years, the Honey Bee newsletter has been brought out for 19 years and in different languages.   Currently there are six regional versions of the newsletter apart from the English version, which are managed by the core team of the Honey Bee collaborators in different states, namely – Tamil (Num Vali Velanmai), Kannada (Hittalagida), Gujarati (Loksarvani), Hindi (Sujhbujh), Malayalam (Inikarshankan Samsarikkatte), Oriya (Ama Akha Pakha) and Telegu. The Honey Bee collaborators provide major support to the network in maintaining and operationalizing the informal horizontal relationships.  People to people learning is also facilitated through Shodh Yatras.  
The Honey Bee philosophy operates through blending of the 7 Es, Excellence, Equity, Environment, Efficiency, Ethics, Empathy and Education. It is the ethical basis of the seven Es which has enabled the voluntary spirit of the network to build upon people’s knowledge systems without impoverishing the knowledge holders for the last two decades. The network has achieved success to a large extent in connecting individual and communities around the world through local language interfaces, protecting their IPRs and ensuring equitable sharing of benefits in as fair and transparent manner as possible.   

Shodh Yatra:

Every six months, we walk from village to village honouring local knowledge experts and grassroots innovators, young children who have extraordinary sensitivity about the biodiversity based knowledge systems and other change agents.   Having walked for about 4200 kms., in twenty  Shodh Yatras, every summer and every winter for last eight years, a great deal of cross pollination has taken place.   We have been inspired by the innovations we came across.   The multimedia multi language database carried on laptops and projected for wider viewing wherever electricity is available generates excitement among the local community members also.  During the 16th Shodh Yatra in Kerala, in one of the roadside meetings when we were presenting the innovations, lot of people had gathered around.  After half an hour, we stopped the presentation and asked people to share their insights about local creative people.   There was a lull.  People asked us to continue presentation and we would not.   After a while, several people came forward and told us about fascinating innovations involving modification in steering arrangements for car to make it possible for handicapped people to drive, improvement in vanilla processing technique to raise the level of vaniline extraction, development of cardamom variety, etc.  The seventeenth Shodh Yatra took place in Koraput region of Orissa – one of the poorest regions having knowledge rich people from May 9 – 16, 2006 (www.sristi.org).   The eighteenth Shodh Yatra took place in western UP in Buland Shahar district from Ganga Garh to Daula village of Baghpat, Dec 26 till jan3, 2006. Subsequently, we had 19th Shodh Yatra in Anant Nag District (J&K) in June, 2007 and 20th Shodh Yatra in Jharkhand and West Bengal in Dec. 2007.   

Having walked in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Orissa, Uttranchal, Himachal Pradesh, besides of course, different parts of Gujarat.   For last five years, a course has been introduced in IIMA (Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad) on the same subject encouraging students to learn from within and common people.   

Institutional evolution: technological diffusion

IIMA has continued to provide all the support to the network and the editorial office Honey Bee newsletter continues to be there.   I have relinquished the responsibility for formal coordination and Dr. T.P. Prakash, UAS, Bangalore is the current coordinator.  In 1993, Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and Institutions (SRISTI – www.sristi.org) was set up to provide institutional support to the network and take up advocacy, natural science research, mobilisation, value addition and other such support activities.  SRISTI has evolved into a very forceful voice for protection of intellectual property rights of the people (individuals as well as communities) and the policy reform proposals mooted by it have been discussed in the inter governmental panel set up for the purpose at WIPO (see agenda papers for June 2005 meeting).   SRISTI developed the model of scouting and documentation of innovations in the field of technologies, primary education, indigenous common property institutions, multimedia multi language database development, value addition and diffusion through commercial and non-commercial channels.   As a follow up of an international conference on Creativity and Innovations at Grassroots held at IIMA in January 1997, it was realised that a micro venture innovation fund was a major missing link in the value chain being built up by SRISTI at national and international level and IIMA.   A proposal on SRISTI venture fund was circulated at the conference, which led Gujarat State Government to come forward and collaborate with SRISTI and IIMA to set up first Gujarat Grassroots Innovation Augmentation Network (GIAN – www.gian.org).  SRISTI has evolved through collective efforts of several colleagues who have given some of their best years to its growth. 

It has later expanded to include other western regions too.   GIAN’s role basically is to link the triangle of innovation, investment and enterprise for rewarding creativity.  It has helped file patents in India as well as in USA with the help of SRISTI and has licensed about a dozen technologies to small-scale entrepreneurs.   Hon’ble President of India, Dr.A.P.J.Kalam honoured GIAN when it shared the best incubator award with IIT, Madras based incubator in June 2004.  

Policy impact and institutionalisation of innovation movement:

In 1998, I spent six months trying to persuade various ministries of Government of India to consider scaling up of Honey Bee model.   Everybody somehow offered project support or wanted more pilot studies to be done.   By that time, we had documented about 10000 innovations and traditional knowledge examples.   After a lot of struggle, one day a meeting was arranged in December 1998 with the then Secretary, Economic Affairs, Dr.E.A.S.Sarma, who was himself a scientist and could appreciate the merit of the Honey Bee database.  He invited the then Finance Secretary, Dr.Vijay Kelkar who also found idea worth scaling up.  We requested Dr.R.A.Mashelkar, F.R.S., Secretary, Department of Industrial and Scientific Research, to chair the proposed National Innovation Foundation (NIF – www.nifindia.org) and thus the idea of Foundation was born.   The Finance Minister supported it and announced the formation of the Foundation in his budget speech in the parliament in February 1999.   On February 28, 2000, NIF formally came into existence with a corpus of USD 5 million approximately.   NIF has five functions: scouting and documentation, value addition and research and development, intellectual property right protection and licensing, business development and micro venture, information, communication technologies applications and dissemination.  

NIF has mobilised additional 60,000 innovations and traditional knowledge making the total database of more than 70,000 such practices from over 500 districts in last eight years.   Nothing at this scale has ever been achieved in the field of grassroots knowledge, innovations and practices.   It has helped file 143 patents including six, which were filed by GIAN and SRISTI in US.   The US patents were filed with pro bono help of a Boston based law firm viz., THT, now dissolved. At present, K&L Gates provides the same services (Turano, 2001,pc). Similarly, all the patents in India have been filed with the pro bono help of IPR firms. Among all the stakeholders, the professional community dealing with intellectual property right protection has made the most voluntary contribution.  

NIF has set up the Student Club for Augmentation of Innovations at Grassroots (SCAI) chapters in leading business and technical universities to provide technical and business assistance to the grassroots innovators.  The Grassroots Innovation Design by Students (GRIDS) clubs try to encourage students of engineering, agriculture, pharmacy etc., to undertake any one of the following activities for incubating grassroots innovations such as a) Documentation, validation, market benchmarking of scouted innovations, b) Development of technical incubation plans and c) Undertaking prototype development or product development or testing and calibration.

About two dozen technologies have been licensed to small-scale entrepreneurs directly and through two GIAN centres and one GIAN cell.   NIF has scaled up GIAN experience to set up GIAN north at Jaipur and GIAN cells at IIT Guwahati, SSIT, Tumkur and TCE, Madurai.  The cell at Guwahati is managed by NIF directly and the others are supported by local host institutions.   To strengthen the support for innovations, Small Scale Industrial Development Bank of India (SIDBI) joined hands with NIF after the Finance Minister made the announcement in the parliament to set up a Micro Venture Innovation Fund of about USD 1 million in October 2003.  There is a great deal of discussion on micro finance but when have we heard the discussion on micro venture finance.   The implication of this policy gap could be that policy planners and heads major international financial institutions have no idea of the creative potential that exists at grassroots level.  Or they believe, naively I suppose, that these innovations could be scaled up without the support of risk capital.  

What is remarkable about the licensing experience is that majority of the technologies have been transferred without having received a patent on any one of them.   It is obvious that diffusion of technologies must take place through social as well as commercial channels.   There is no doubt that diffusion through farmers and artisans own networks have been most effective in past.   However, the media exposure has also made significant difference.   

NIF has organised four award functions so far. Former President of India has given the awards in the last three functions.   When the former head of the state honours grassroots innovators and traditional knowledge holders, a statement is made.   When Dr.Kalam invited the awardees to the President’s house and personally offered snacks to the elderly awardees, everybody was touched to the core.  Never before had extremely common people pursuing uncommon distinctions imagined that they would receive such consideration from the President of one of the world’s largest democracies.   

Dr.Mashelkar, Chairperson, NIF has always believed that ‘I’ in India should really stand for ‘Innovation’.   Moved by the impact of the movement, he realised that the rising aspirations of the people will convert into frustrations if value was not added.   Accordingly, an MOU was signed between NIF and CSIR (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research) in June 2004 to support research in four areas, viz., herbal, mechanical, food processing and nutraceuticals, and energy.  A joint implementation committee, chaired by an eminent scientist, Dr.R.Kumar from Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore has been set up to manage and monitor the cooperation.   Similar MOU has been signed with Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) to add value to herbal knowledge.   Out of more than 70,000 innovations and traditional knowledge, more than 60,000 deal with herbal applications for human as well as animal health and agricultural purposes. Unless value is added to the unique practices as such or after pooling the best ones, no benefits will accrue to the knowledge providers.   Just to give an example of the international interest in commercialising grassroots innovations, in the last two years, NIF received more then 250 inquiries from 40 countries for 54 technologies mobilized by the network.  Many more enquiries have come from within the country.  The idea is catching up.  Some other small organisations have also tried to help few of the award winners of NIF without however, feeling constrained by the Honey Bee Network philosophy.   In due course, it is expected that a larger social acceptance will emerge so that minimum ethical protocol will be followed while dealing with people’s knowledge systems.   

What next:

AASTIK, an Academy for Augmenting Sustainable Technological Inventions, innovations and Traditional Knowledge, has been recently set up by SRISTI, to promote research by the knowledge holders and grassroots innovators themselves with or without the support of professionals. The idea has been conceptualized with the belief that research about creativity and innovation is not the prerogative of only the institutional scientists; it can also be undertaken by the innovators themselves. The academy aims to provide the virtual platform to the innovators, academicians and scholars for presenting, harnessing and upgrading their knowledge pertaining to innovation, creativity, heuristics of traditional knowledge etc. 

AASTIIK may eventually evolve into an international centre of excellence for capacity building of scholars, local community leaders and innovators themselves and their organizations from around the world. Grassroots innovators (with the help of research fellows and other faculty members) will be imparting training to policy makers, NGO leaders and others interested in building similar networks. 

The grassroots innovation movement in India is spreading rapidly.  The National Register of Grassroots Innovations and Traditional Knowledge provides no legal protection as such though PIC does cover contractual protection.   There is a need to modify the international IPR regime to make it more responsive towards the need of innovators and traditional knowledge holders in developing countries.   Unless the transaction costs are reduced for people to disclose their knowledge, innovations and practices, why should they share their unique insights and experiences?   At the same time many of the knowledge holders do share their innovative experiences because of their inherent generosity.   Should those who share remain poor while others who are greedy become rich?  How do we sustain the communitarian spirit without penalising the local innovators and traditional knowledge holders for putting faith in our institutions?  Most international attempts in this regard have fallen short of the ethical and institutional  requirements of transparency and accountability towards the knowledge holders.  

To restore the confidence, we have to consider several policy measures at international and national level. 

a)	Globally distributed Network of  mentors:  A web site for inviting volunteers was designed, viz. www.indiainnovates.com with the help of iima students some years ago. Idea was to assist the grassroots innovators in developing their products, designing these better, testing these for taking these not just to  domestic markets but also in global markets. Already, technologies have been commercialised in USA, Singapore, and Pakistan. Grassroots to global seems a realizable dream. So far, all due to domestic resources. 

b)	Global-GIAN: Brazil and China have joined hands with SRISTI  to scale up Indian experience. Malaysia and S African science and technology departments are also in touch with us to explore how can Honey Bee Network experience is replicated there. The purpose is to reduce transaction costs of entrepreneurs and potential risk capital investors from around the world to join hands with the innovators. Each one of them may not find the other in the current disjointed system. It should eventually evolve into a virtual Incubator for green grassroots innovations.

c)	International Register of innovations and traditional knowledge: Since 1993, SRISTI has campaigned for INSTAR( International Network for Sustainable Technological Applications and Registration) but such a registry is yet to evolve. People in one part of the world may thus learn from creative people in another part. Such a registry could also provide a low transaction cost system clear the demand and supply of innovations, investment and entrepreneurial support. It can also be agreed under a new treaty likely to be negotiated at CBD/WIPO to provide a quick protection from  prevent bio-piracy. 

d)	Building Upon Women’s knowledge: One of the major gaps in our activities has been the inadequate number of innovations and traditional knowledge contributions by women.   There are several reasons, which may have caused this gap, one important reason could be lack of women field workers.   About 1.2 million self-help groups of women are believed to exist in the country Even if a small section of such women group can be reached, and be linked with the innovation movement, it would be highly beneficial. In every monthly meeting of SHGs, the traditional knowledge of women about agriculture, food processing, weaning foods, health, and livestock may be documented. By pooling the best practices, new products can be developed which can be taken to market with the help of investment from Micro Venture Innovation Fund.  This will help in three ways (i) horizontal trading among the groups for products developed by them will lead to solidarity and social welfare, (ii) create market for such products in urban areas, additional income can be mobilized for the women and (iii) new knowledge based products may provide additional incentives for people to try other institutional approaches for adding value and generating incomes. 

e)	Inventors Association (Innovator led regional incubator): The horizontal networking among the innovators through their own associations is something very crucial to evolve a culture of cooperation. Later, these informal networks could be formalised in the form of an Inventors and Innovators Association to provide institutional support to grassroots innovators located in villages and urban areas all over the country. 

f)	International/National Technological Innovation Acquisition Fund

Sometimes, an innovator may not have sufficient resources to scale up his/her innovations or inventions (in private, public or informal sector). Yet some of these innovations may need to be diffused for a larger social cause. For instance improvements in design of a kerosene stove which saves energy may be very vital for national interest but the concerned innovator (as is the case with most of the innovators with NIF who have improved stove design) may have neither the incentive nor the capacity or both, to diffuse the design among large number of small scale manufacturers.  Creation of a National/International Technological Innovation Acquisition fund may be helpful to acquire the licensing rights of such innovations and inventions for eventual out licensing these at low or no cost to small scale manufacturers under technological up-gradation program. Ideally the rationale behind having a technology acquisition fund is to compensate those knowledge providers whose knowledge has potential for economic value addition. Later, this knowledge pool could be governed by open source philosophy so long as people meet their livelihood needs.  

g)	Reforming Intellectual Property Information System: the oral knowledge, which is not documented in public databases or is not reasonably accessible, should be protected and not considered as prior art. Once this knowledge of any society is assumed to be prior art, no compensation may be due from anyone who uses it for commercial purposes. Every patent applicant in developing as well as developed countries should be required to declare that the knowledge and or resources used in the application have been used lawfully as well as rightfully (through prior informed consent). Similarly, there should be First to Invent system for small innovators instead of First to File. How can small dispersed, often illiterate grassroots innovators be expected to compete with large corporation in reaching the patent office first? There are a large number of other reforms that need to be brought about to blend the advantage of GPL used in open source technologies with the licensing system followed in conventional intellectual property right system. 

h)	Collaboration with schools: A very large effort is needed for supporting curiosity, commitment and collaboration among children. NIF has made some effort in this direction. Unless the spirit of creativity is unfolded at an early stage in life, it may become difficult for this trait to be developed at the adult stage.  

i)	Linking Technology Students with problems and solutions of grassroots Innovators: There are at least 500,000 technology students in India. Each one of them does one project in a year. There is no means to ensure that these projects are linked with grassroot innovations and traditional knowledge or problems of small scale or tiny sectors which need to be solved. Even if one per cent of these projects are based on innovations that have already been scouted and documented, and aim at improving and calibrating them, this would be a great achievement. There is a need to have a web based database that would have information on such projects. The portal should also have a segmented list of problems which needs urgent attention with particular focus on the problems of women and handicapped people. This would require provision of funds for running a portal and extending small support to the students managed by a committee of eminent scientists and technical experts.

j)	Mobile and stationery multi-media–multi language Databases and exhibitions of innovations: these  will help immensely in overcoming three barriers that we have identified for learning at grassroots, that is literacy, language and localism. Multi-language multi media kiosks set up as Gyan Manthan Kendra( knowledge churning centre)  will help in bridging the knowledge divide with in village or nearby places.

k)	Dedicated Labs for adding value to traditional knowledge: Diffusion of technologies with high social impact suffers a great deal as there are hardly any specific laboratory facilities for large scale demonstration of such technologies. There is a necessity to allocate separate space and fund for large scale demonstrations, viz., herbal pesticides, herbal veterinary medicine, small sprayers, ploughing devices, cycle based devices etc. A chain of dedicated labs devoted to value addition in biodiversity based innovations and traditional knowledge are needed to fill an important gap. In the first 16 years, we could not get 16 experiments done on grassroots innovations in public or private sector labs. We were expected to pay the same cost that large corporations are expected to pay. Things have begun to change in the last two years. We may develop decentralised common pool fabrication laboratories and testing centres for faster validation. This will particularly help the local innovators and artisans so that their knowledge can be blended and upgraded with modern tools and techniques to produce competitive technologies.

l)	Innovation Insurgents:   The idea is that those young people who are angry and are willing to destroy the existing icons of power and authority have a reason to feel angry.   We have to accept their frustration as genuine and legitimate.   It is true that violent means very seldom can achieve, if ever, positive results.   Therefore, the power to destroy has to be transformed into power to create.   I submit that the examples of grassroots innovations and traditional knowledge that we have collected from over 500 districts in India provide a basis for attempting this transformation.   It will be naïve on my part to suggest that these insurgents will overnight take over the function of innovation augmentation or knowledge brokers and managers to build value chain around their indigenous technologies. Unless we build upon richness of nature and richness of their knowledge, the people on the margin will not become major actors in transforming the grim situation in these regions. The struggle of local communities mainly in forest and other marginal regions have been around jal, jungal, and jamin (water, forest and land).   The ‘jankari’(knowledge) has not been generally a basis for struggle.  In the emerging knowledge economy, the knowledge of people is the most precious resource.   However, the rights of the people in this knowledge are not yet properly defined, or for that matter even recognized. I am only suggesting that there is a need to listen to the angry youth of our society who fortunately are not willing to be patient indefinitely with the continued injustice and exploitation.   Their restlessness is the biggest asset that this initiative intends to build upon.   The role of financial, R&D, market and design institutions is obvious in building value chain and providing back up support to the innovation insurgents

Ultimately, what is needed is a global movement in which providers of funds will consider their support as fees to be paid to learn from creativity and innovations at grassroots. Policy makers will have to be cajoled at international level to explain their continued indifference to the potential people have, to solve ( even if sub-optimally)  long pending problems. Though some times we need to challenge the young and the old to solve the problems, which even grassroots innovators have ignored. The modification in the design of  pulley for drawing water is one such example. When we posed the problem of the static design of pulley, which had remained frozen for almost two thousand years, the innovators came out with many suggestions. Ultimately, Amrut bhai came out with an arrangement of a simple lever on the top of the pulley. It enabled women to leave rope whenever they were tired so that they could gasp for the breath. Once they had rested, they could start pulling water again. The bucket of water once pulled up would not slide down into the well as is the case with conventional pulleys unless one kept holding on to that. There are a large number of such problems which will have to be posed to the students as well as other innovators. 

It has taken us a long time to reach this point. Others will have to take this movement forward. Building collective leadership is the greatest challenge since many  individuals, devoted as they are and have been,  have their own life goals to pursue. The network of innovators will have to take charge ultimately of this movement. Amen.

FIGURE: 1  DISTRIBUTION OF PATENTS GRANTED TO INDIANS AT USPTO: 1976 – 2008 (Till 21st Jan, 2008)

INDIVIDUALS
(338)
    CSIR
    (970)
INDIAN 
ORGANISATIONS	PUBLIC SECTOR
 (2335)		         LABS & COMPANIES
(1162)
ASSIGNEE CATEGORY					                                         OTHERS
							NGOs (6)	   	      (192)						
 PATENTS GRANTED								            			PRIVATE SECTOR 		
TO INDIANS AT USPTO		    								LABS & COMPANIES
	(4639)												              (746)

UNIVERSITIES & INSTITUTIONS (83)
                                          
      FORIEGN 			    FIRM (2322)
ORGANISATIONS		                  STATE DEPT. (75)
             (2516)		                  UNIV. /INSTTs. (119)
     
					RESIDENT INDIAN (3121)
					
					RESIDENT INDIAN + NON-RES. INDIAN (245)	

INVENTOR CLASS		RESIDENT INDIAN + FOREIGN INVENTOR (962)
				
			RESIDENT INDIAN + NON-RES. INDIAN 
				+ FOREIGN INVENTOR    (280)

			NON-RES. INDIAN  + FOREIGN INVENTOR (21) 

Source : www.uspto.gov									Search key: ICN/IN or ACN/IN
** Note: Some patents have more than one assignee {Eg,(1) Dr. Reddy’s Lab (Private Indian Lab.) and Nova Nordisk (Foreign Corporation) are joint assignee for the patent (2) Dabur Research Foundation and University of Delhi}
Table : 1

TREND OF PATENT GRANTED TO  INDIANS AT UNITED STATES PATENT & TRADEMARK OFFICE (USPTO) OVER THE YEARS

Sr. No.	YEAR	PATENTS GRANTED	
1.	1976-80	89	
2.	1981-85	75	
3.	1986-90	120	
4.	1991-95	223	
5.	1996-2000	619	
6.	2000-2005	1987	
7.	2006- Jan 21st 2008	1526	
	TOTAL	4639	

Search Key: “ACN/IN or ICN/IN”	

	
Table : 2

DISTRIBUTION OF PATENTS GRANTED TO RESIDENT INDIANS AT USPTO FROM 1976- Jan. 21st, 2008

Sr. no.	Agencies	 Patents 
Granted	 (%)	
1	Foreign private Agencies & Organizations	2322	47.8	
2	Council for Scientific and Industrial Research	970	19.9	
3	Other Public sector Companies, Labs. And Govt. Dept	192	3.9	
4	Private sector Companies and Labs.	746	15.3	
5	Individuals	338	6.9	
6	Foreign Universities	119	2.4	
7	Indian Universities and Institutions	83	1.7	
8	Foreign State institutions	75	1.5	
9	NGO	6	0.01	
	TOTAL	4851		
* Note: Agencies from two different sectors may have joint ownership for the single patent (E.g. Dabur research Foundation (Private Organization) and University of Delhi (university))

Table 3
Trends in Inventorship pattern of patents granted by USPTO (1976 – January 21st, 2008)
Sr.
	Year	Resident Indians	Resident Indian + Foreign Inventor	Resident Indian + 
Non-Resident Indian	Non Resident Indian + Foreign Inventor 	Resident Indian + Non Resident Indian + Foreign Inventor	Total	
1.		1976 – 80	54
(60.67)	28
(31.46)	5
(5.62)	1
(1.12)	1
(1.12)	89	
2.		1981 – 85	37 
(49.33)	36
(48.00)	1
(1.33)	0
(0.00)	1
(1.33)	75	
3.		1986 – 90	59
(49.17)	56
(46.67)	0
(0.00)	0
(0.00)	5
(4.17)	120	
4.		1991 – 95	109
(48.88)	93
(41.70)	3
(1.35)	2
(0.90)	16
(7.17)	223	
5.		1996 – 2000	383 (61.87)	156 
(25.20)	26
(4.20)	7
(1.13)	47
(7.59)	619	
6.		2001 – 2005	1438
(72.37)	330
(16.60)	119
(5.98)	1
(9.05)	99
(4.98)	1987	
7.		2006 – Jan 24, 2008	1041
(68.2%)	263
(17.2%)	91
(5.9%)	20 
(1.3%)	111
(7.2%)	1526	

Table 4
Trends in Assignment of Patents granted by USPTO (1976 – January 21st, 2008)

Sr.
	Year	Foreign firm	Indian Individual	Private Sector Firms (IN)	Public sector (IN)	Indian Univ. & Institutions	Foreign state	Foreign Univ. & Institutions	NGOs	Total	
1.		1976-80	50 (56.18)	16 (17.98)	11 
(12.36)	3 
(3.37)	3 
(3.37)	0 
(0.00)	5 
(5.62)	0 (0.00)	89	
2.		1981-85	34 (45.33)	15 (20.00)	10 
(13.33)	3 
(4.00)	1
(1.33)	9
(12.00)	4
(5.33)	0
(0.00)	75	
3.		1986-90	36 (30.00)	27 (22.50)	10 
(8.33)	16 
(13.33)	1
(0.83)	16
(13.33)	15
(12.50)	0
(0.00)	120	
4.		1991-95	114 (51.12)	31 (13.90)	20 
(8.97)	35 
(15.70)	2
(0.90)	8
(3.59)	12
(5.38)	0
(0.00)	223	
5.		1996-2000	272 (43.94)	70
(11.31)	90
(14.54)	167
(26.98)	13
(2.10)	12
(1.94)	20
(3.23)	0
(0.00)	619	
6.		2001-2005	906 (43.95)	83 
(4.02)	287
(13.92)	701
(34.01)	46
(2.23)	2
(0.09)	31
(1.50)	5
(0.24)	2061	
7.		2006-Jan 21, 2008	922 
(53.14)	78 
(4.49)	305
(17.57)	377
(21.72)	11
(0.63)	5
(0.28)	37
(2.13)	0
(0.00)	1735	

Note: Many patents have been assigned to more than one party. 
 Table 5

PATENTS GRANTED TO INVENTORS FROM DIFFERENT STATES OF INDIA DURING  1976- Jan. 21st, 2008 

Sr. No.	State	No. of Patents Granted	
		1976-Sep. 24th,2006	1976-Jan. 21st, 2008	
1	Karnataka	784	1140	
2	Maharashtra	912	1091	
3	Delhi	392	487	
4	Andhra Pradesh	333	441	
5	Uttar Pradesh	264	336	
6	Tamil Nadu 	183	241	
7	West Bengal	142	177	
8	Gujarat	121	142	
9	Kerala	106	125	
10	Haryana	93	111	
11	Himachal Pradesh	34	35	
12	Jammu and Kashmir	34	41	
13	Goa 	33	34	
14	Madhya Pradesh	32	36	
15	Uttaranchal	27	30	
16	Bihar	15	16	
17	Jharkhand	15	18	
18	Assam	13	16	
19	Punjab	13	24	
20	Orissa	11	16	
21	Rajasthan	10	12	
22	Others (States not given)	48	51	
	TOTAL	3615	4624	

Note: State of the first inventor has been taken into consideration while preparing the table

     Table 6

TOP TWELVE INSTITUTIONAL  ASSIGNEES OF PATENTS 
GRANTED TO RESIDENT INDIANS :  1976- Jan. 21st , 2008

Sr. No.	Agency	No. of patents granted	
1	Government Organisations/Institutes		
	Council of Scientific and Industrial Research	970	
	National Institute of Immunology	15	
2	Public Sector undertakings		
	Indian Oil Corporation	28	
3	Private Laboratories		
	STMicroelectronics Ltd.	95	
	Dr. Reddy's Research Foundation	80	
	Ranbaxy Laboratories	78	
	Dabur Research Foundation	36	
	Orchid Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals	24	
	Biocon Ltd.	20	
	Lupin Laboratories	17	
	Panacea Biotech	16	
	Indian Petrochemical Company Ltd.	16	
4	Individuals	319	
5	Others 	2068	
TOTAL  	3782	

Table 7

 TOP TEN FOREIGN ASSIGNEES FOR PATENTS GRANTED TO RESIDENT INDIAN INDIVIDUALS 
DURING 1976 – JANUARY 21st, 2008

Sl.No.	AGENCY	PATENTS GRANTED	
1.		Texas Instruments Incorporated	212	
2.		General Electric Company	195	
3.		IBM Corp.	182	
4.		Hoechst Aktiengesellschaft	54	
5.		Hewlett Packard Dev. Company	36	
6.		Veritas Operating Corporation	36	
7.		Cypress Semiconductor Corporation	33	
8.		Cisco Technology, Inc.	33	
9.		GE Medical Systems Global Technology Company, Inc.	31	
10.		Broadcom Corporation	29	
TOTAL	808	

Table 8
Sectoral category-wise distribution of patents granted to Indians at USPTO 
1976 – January 21st, 2008

S.No.	CATEGORY	PATENT	
1.		Drugs, herbal health formulations and nutriceuticals: cancer, anti-inflammatory, cosmetic (skin, personal and hair care), antimicrobial, antibiotic, cardiac, neurological, reproductive, etc.	832	
2.		Computer: software, data processing, debugging, integrated circuits, visualization, graphics, printer, semiconductor, memory, hardware, image analysis, etc.	706	
3.		Organic chemistry and compound	531	
4.		Data Processing: Structural design, measuring, software, artificial intelligence, speech, design, management, etc.	501	
5.		Electrical: switch, circuit, chemistry, connectors, heating, measuring and testing lamp, modeling, power management, transmission, x-ray tubes, etc.	284	
6.		Synthetic and natural resin: polymer, adhesives, leather, tyres, etc.	193	
7.		Molecular biology, biochemistry, biotechnology, molecular chemistry	176	
8.		Communications: telecommunications, radio, television, multiplex communications, internet, pulse and digital communications, optical, etc.	291	
9.		Minerals & Hydrocarbon: chemistry, fuels, petroleum, gas separation, lubricant, LPG, mineral oils, etc.	80	
10.		Electronics: Measuring, Circuit, Digital Thermostat, Documents, Switches, Magnet, Cooling device, Amplifiers, Thermoelectric batteries, Fuse	211	
11.		Plants: variety, tissue culture, sexual reproduction, breeding, hybrid, genetic engineering, etc.	79	
12.		Coating composition: paints, bleaching and dye, etc.	72	
13.		Agrochemicals and fertilizers: plant protectant, bio-fertiliser, fertilizer, herbal plant protectants, etc.	66	
14.		Cleaning composition: detergent, bar, washing material, etc.	55	
15.		Design: Drug, Ornamental, Vehicles, Jewelry, Stones, etc.	91	
16.		Catalyst	48	
17.		Inorganic chemistry and compounds	60	
18.		Automobiles & Engines: tractors, brakes, clutches, tools, etc.	71	
19.		Others: Metallurgy & Alloys, Surgery and medical equipments, food products, heat generation, refrigeration, air coolant, analytical processes and chemistry, fluid dynamics, civil engineering, stock materials, liquid purification, kitchen utensils, magnetic compositions, glass, paper, plastic, nuclear, fabrics, textiles, etc.	322	
20.		Total	4639