PANAJI: An awareness programme on ‘Intellectual Property Rights,’ (IPR) was conducted recently at the V M Salgaocar College of Law (VMSCL), Miramar which was organised by MSME-Development Institute, Margao, under the Ministry of MSME.
The objective of the seminar was to benefit the interest of stakeholders, teachers, IP practitioners, entrepreneurs and other professionals related to IPR.
The programme was co-ordinated by Dr G Shaber Ali and Assistant Prof Shruti Kamat Dalal.
The chief guest of the function was Senior Advocate Saresh Lotlikar who said, “IPR is gaining lot of relevance at the global level, and Delhi comparatively has the highest number of litigations pending in courts of law in India on IPR issues.” He also said, “Further petitions on Copy Right are also filed before the Bombay High Court at Goa and in order to avoid confusion as to violation of IPR, all should be aware of the law in force and MSME schemes in the field.”
Earlier the director of MSME-DI, Margao G R Akadas, welcomed the gathering and specified that MSME plays a major role in channelising its schemes for the optimum use of the beneficiaries.
The principal of VMSCL Dr M R K Prasad, also spoke regarding the importance of IPR, during the function.
The assistant director of MSME, Goa Shashi Kumar highlighted about the role of MSME and the schemes available in IPR and also proposed the vote of thanks.
Professor Dr T Ramakrishna, (chairperson IPR chair) NLSIU, Bangalore, who was the resource person spoke on ‘Patent, Law & Practice.’
Kumar also specified about myriad IP rights, IP offices in India, patent requirements which includes patent eligible subject matter, novelty, utility value, non-obvious invention and inventive step for patent protection.
He also briefed on the patent procedure and the remedies available for patent infringement and said that Thomas Edison had 1,093 patents to his credit.
Kumar also expressed his concern over the UN report published in 2016 which ranks India 37th in the IP ecosystem out of 38 countries in the list.
Dr G Shaber Ali spoke on the ‘concept, significance & recent trade marks issues.’
He emphasised on the need of trade mark registration which protects the seller from commercial exploitation and also the consumer as regards the reputation and quality of goods and services.
Ali gave different instances of what is excluded from registration under the Trade Marks Act 1999 wherein in one case US Company was restricted from using Bapu’s image for its beer brand.
Various issues relating to deceptive similarity and trade mark violations in India were discussed at length. Ali also expressed concern over 3.2 crore litigations pending on TM violations. The programme was compered by Ameya Nayak.