Some good links about IP by Evalueserve

Patenting in the land of Saraswati and Lakshmi, article in Business Today, Jan 2004
Software and Business Methods - An IP Perspective
Patently- A new Era- IP-survey_BT Evalueserve-Jan2004
The Patents (Amendment) Ordinance, 2004 in India
Offshoring Patent drafting and prosecution services- IP today article May 2005

Other links about IP ,innovation and KPO

Technological Importance of Asian Patents
About KPO - Knowledge Process Outsourcing

Hello folks,

This is Balwant from Evalueserve (EVS), currently working as a senior manager in the Intellectual Property (IP) division. I am heading one of the four IP groups in EVS. I passed out in 2001 from IT-BHU (BTech CS), and joined EVS in October 2001. During the period of more than four years I have seen tremendous growth here (from 50 to 950). As on January 2006, we have a total of 130 people in IP, which will cross 250 by the end of year 2006.

IP Scenario in India

First of all, the scene of IP in India is going to be really hot in the coming years. As more and more big technology firms are increasing their presence in India, Indian companies are feeling the pressure and now formulating their IP strategy.

Some of the press releases about scenario of IP in India are given below:

An article by Alok Aggarwal about IP services in India

India: the big outsourcing hub of patent ideas

India to face more patent litigations

Importance of IP
IP can either make or break a company. In today's competitive world, no company can underestimate the power of IP. Hence, successful companies are proactive in filing patents for any novel and useful ideas before their competitors.

I feel every professional should have at least basic knowledge of IP, in order to stay ahead in this competitive world. I have presented IPR training sessions for certain organizations. During the training sessions, I realized that the current IP awareness of the professionals was quite low, because of which they are not able to fully utilize the commercial potential of their wonderful ideas.

IP is also important for Nation's growth.
Take the example of Japan. Post World war -2, one of the main reasons for progress of Japan has been the focus on innovation and patenting(both in Japan and US).
Picture this patenting trend of top 10 companies filing in US in 2005- Out of top 10 patent filers, 5 are Japanese firms (Canon, Matsushita, Hitachi, Toshiba, and Fujitsu) as against 4 US firms (IBM, HP, Micron, and Intel).


The right IP strategy for a company

There are many ways the companies can benefit from a right IP strategy:
1. Defensive strategy: Filing for patents in order to protect their intellectual property, and preventing other companies from copying the products/ideas.
2. Offensive strategy: Identifying if other companies are using their ideas (consciously or unconsciously), and generating money by licensing or infringement suits
3. Collaboration strategy: Rather than re-inventing the wheel and developing the products from scratch, sometimes its easier and cheaper to in-license the relevant technology from patent holders.
4. Patent watch: The companies should also be continuously looking at:

• New patents being filed in their technology domains (by the other companies and independent inventors) to assess chances of IP infringement or a collaboration strategy
• Old patents to find out if they are infringing on any third party patent, and to make the right business decision in time.
  

Work in Evalueserve

The majority of work here relates to Patents (though Intellectual Property includes copyright, trademark, industrial design also). Some of the main IP services offered are:

1. Patentibility Analysis: If you have got an invention or a useful idea (lets say a device to), is the invention patentable?
2. Patent drafting
3. Freedom to operate analysis
4. Invalidation search
5. IP Landscape analysis
6. IP Licensing support