Why protect Intellectual Property (IP)? Issues in IP, Protection, management and risks of IP, Agreement and negotiations with respect to IP; these were the topics discussed by the speakers at the seminar organized by Brain League IP services on 27th, Friday, held at Le Meridian, Bangalore, aimed mainly at start-up companies and entrepreneurs.

Mr. Anil S, delivering his presentation

The seminar was addressed by highly qualified experts having immense experience in different aspects relating to IP. The first session of speech was delivered by Mr. Anil S., professor at IIM, Bangalore, who spoke on why a company would find the need to protect its IP. He further went on to talk about how the Indian IP legislation is very well balanced, keeping owner’s rights and public interest in mind, in comparison with that of the other countries. He also highlighted in his talk the importance and the need to demarcate the rights and luxuries that would persist or be transferred in case of cross border collaborations and issues arising due to inefficient legal instruments.

Nishant delivering his presentation

Following the edifying talk on issues in IP was a presentation on IP management, protection and risks delivered by Mr. Nishant Kewalramani, Portfolio Manager at Brain league, an IP expert with thorough understanding of the way IP issues would be treated in the court of law. In his discussion, Nishant crystallized on the importance of securing your IP, cost effective strategies that could be employed during filing, the patentability filters and IP qualification criteria maintained by Indian and International patent offices. Also highlighted were the Do’s and Don’ts with respect to IP, starting from conceptualization until IP protection has been secured and how it is important not just to claim protection, but also be aware of existing IP.

Vintee introducing Dr. Kalyan while Dr. Kalyan waits in the wings

Dr. Kalyan Kankanala, Chief Knowledge officer at Brainleague, an expert at analyzing agreements and building negotiation strategies took over the post lunch session elucidating on agreements and negotiation strategies for start-ups and entrepreneurs. Shedding light on the different kinds of agreements and their clauses, Kalyan listed out points which start up companies tend to ignore during collaboration and described the consequences of such associations, He also suggested how to avoid such situations. The talk was followed by an interactive role-play session where participants were handed out a case, allowed to negotiate and strike a deal.

While the talk helped the participating start up companies to better understand the loopholes and the line of approach to be taken to better encash their IP, participants were also given an opportunity to seek advice from different panels, put together towards the end of the seminar counseled by IP experts from Brain league.

The participants included individuals from many start-ups, entrepreneurs and individual inventors. The seminar was enlightening to the participants with respect to procedural, and licenses and contracts related issues usually encountered by entrepreneurs.

Mr. Pratap Pai from Lucid Imaging Private Ltd said, “there is very limited information available with respect to IP, agreements and contracts; this was informative especially the aspects related to the filings and procedures.”

Shivraj Kumar, an individual inventor, appreciating Brain league said, “I was looking for a service of such kind for a long time now, my knowledge of IP is limited only to the internet, not knowing the right steps to take I’ve kept my inventions on hold and am looking for support in the field of IP, these sessions have definitely answered my questions.”

Succinctly put, the session delineated the need, issues, protection, agreements, management, risks with respect to IP and the strategies a start up company would need to employ to be on a cost effective and secure route to handling IP.

The team behind the seminar; (From Left – Right) Vintee, Som, Kalyan, Zubair, Kartik, Nishant, Nitin, Ganesh and Supriya.

- Written by Supriya Ramacha