Mumbai: Maharashtra govt has set up a state-level committee to strengthen the innovation and intellectual property ecosystem in the state. While the number of patents being filed across colleges and universities is on the rise, many are aimed to boost publication records for promotions and as means to augment ‘academic performance indicators’ (APIs). These innovations, therefore, rarely progress to the stage of commercialisation or industry application. The state committee, therefore, aims to address the gaps in the implementation.A govt resolution (GR) released on Tuesday announced the formation of the committee under the chairmanship of Prof Aniruddha Pandit, vice-chancellor of ICT, Matunga, and also enlisted its objectives. Pandit told TOI that very few patents filed by Indian institutions reach the commercialisation stage. “Patents are often viewed by academicians as means to secure promotions under career advancement schemes. Even in leading institutions, the rise in the number of patents filed is not proportionate to those that progress to the licensing stage. There is very little effort to take these innovations to the next level, either to recover research costs or to create meaningful industry impact. This initiative could be a positive step toward making research more impactful, at the same time helping institutions become more self-sustainable,” he said. The eight-member committee, headed by Pandit and Ravindra Kulkarni, the vice-chancellor of Mumbai University, is expected to submit its report in three months through the Directorate of Technical Education (DTE). The GR mentioned that IP cells, though, existed in most institutions, their work is limited to providing information only, and the patent cell lacks the necessary skills for evaluation, technology transfer, and collaboration with industry. The committee will suggest solutions for building capacity by training professors, and researchers in aspects such as patentability, drafting skills, filing procedures, etc. It has also recommended setting up a state-level facilitation centre. The GR also emphasises the need for evaluation and scoring of patents by an expert committee and also creating a patent bank by collecting information on patents by all institutions, classifying them (as filed, granted, commercialised), and publishing the database on DTE’s portal. The committee will also formulate policies to recognise patents as contributions of institutions or professors, determine criteria for considering patent subject matters in NAAC and institutional evaluation. The GR also asked the committee to devise ways to control misuse, and one of the misuses has been listed as the ‘tendency to apply for patents only for academic qualities’.
