The Union Cabinet is expected to take up the Public Funded Research and Development (Protection, Utilisation and Regulation of Intellectual Property) Bill, 2007 at its meeting scheduled for Thursday. The proposed legislation aims at commercialising research done in public-funded institutions and 30% of the revenue earned from the commercialisation would be given to the scientist or inventor.
The legislation is considered significant, as this would force the government institutions, so far insulated from the challenges of the competitive environment, to compete
with the privately-funded researchers. The proposed Bill would enable government institutes to work in a manner that would promote research towards a patent to protect the original work done by the individual or the institution, and ensure exclusivity of the research for 20 years.
While 30% of the revenue from commercialisation would go to the researcher, about 10% would go to the public-funded institute?s intellectual property management cell and the rest of the revenue would be invested back into the institute.
The IPM cell would help the researcher patent innovative work, and also do the commercial negotiations for them. The rights on the research would be with the institute, but the rights to assign would be jointly held by researcher, institute and government. The law ministry has suggested introduction of penal provisions to avoid misuse of intellectual property by scientists.
The Bill would cover all research done in the areas of science, drugs, biotechnology, engineering and culture .