The Institute of Cost Accountants of India (ICAI)
and MSME & Startup Promotion Board in collaboration with World Trade Center
(WTC) Shamshabad-Visakhapatnam, held a virtual session on 'IPR- Business
Strategy' on Thursday. The discussion was about intellectual property rights
and its ecosystem in India. The patent system in India has undergone
significant development leading to a surge in patent filings. This has led
India to rank among top 10 countries in patent filing.
Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) filing has increased from 18,000 in 2012 to
43,163 in 2021 and the number of patents granted has surged from 6,384 in 2012
to 7,722in 2021, the speakers revealed during the webinar. Speaking at the
virtual session, Chittaranjan Chattopadhyay, Chairman, MSME and Startup
Promotion Board said that the country is witnessing significant growth in terms
of innovation which makes it the need of the hour to address matters related to
IPR.
"India has robust legal framework for IPR. Patent system in India has
undergone significant development leading to a surge in patent filing. India
ranks among the top 10 countries in patent filing. The government has introduced
several initiatives to clear backlog of trademark registration and also taken
several measures with regard of IPR filing," the Chairman said.
The chief guest for the event, Y Varaprasad
Reddy, Chairman, WTC Shamshabad-Visakhapatnam, spoke about the importance of
providing information about IPR for accountants who in turn would support
enterprises in understanding the value of IPR. "As entrepreneurs we
understand the importance of innovation in driving economic growth and
development.
That is why we must focus on protecting intellectual property to encourage
innovation and creativity. Through IPR, we can safeguard our inventions and
creative work, enabling us to turn them into profitable business. In today's
rapidly evolving business landscape,enterprises must adopt and innovate to stay
competitive. Hence, IPR should be an integral part of every business
strategy," Reddy said.
 As
the moderator of the session, BM Gupta, GST and Management Consultant, said
that safeguarding IPR is needed to avoid losing revenues, litigation cost and
capturing external market. He also informed that IPR filings have increased in
the last nine years.
The speakers for the session, Isha Sharma, Founder, Trayambak and Amit
Bindlish, Advisor in Health Care IP, spoke about the need of patenting and
different forms of IPR under which a property can be secured.T hey also
informed that for registered startups and MSME's the application fee for the
process is Rs 4,500,a 50 per cent discounted amount.