CII Telangana Urges Industry To Use IPR Judiciously In Time Of COVID-19 Crisis

Hyderabad, April 13 (Maxim News): World is facing an unprecedented challenge due to global coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. In India, as we enter into 20th day of nationwide lockdown today, it is clear that it is affecting many people’s lives, even if in most cases it is rather the precautionary measures that are most strongly felt.

The global pandemic has tickled the innovators and start up community among us across the globe. It goes without saying that many of these innovative developments around COVID-19 touch on Intellectual Property Rights related issues. It makes one wonder how a collective problem like the COVID 19 interacts with the exclusivity afforded by IP rights.

Patent as we all know is a form of IP where exclusivity is offered for offering innovative solutions.

Krishna Bodanapu, Chairman, CII Telangana mentioned that in wake of the severe health risks and massive damage caused by the corona virus world-wide, this might be an appropriate instance to curtail exclusivity by forming a “COVID Innovation and IP Pool” for Licensing and Transfer of Technology at easier terms thereby enabling faster implementation.

The world is also witnessing surge in applicants filing trademarks for ‘Coronavirus’ and ‘COVID’ related marks. Many firms might be unaware of the fact that they may end up stepping into other’s IP and brands and filing for COVID related marks now may not yield expected outcome. Alternatively, it may also lead them in to legal battle with brand owners.

Ideally SMEs and other stakeholder should use their creative acumen during this period to think of new names for their products and process to be launched and explore to file IPs which might be the game changer for them Post COVID crisis.

For universities it is time to file IPs on covid related research and get their due recognition as after the crisis there might be instances of multiple innovators claiming rights on the same innovation.

Subhajit Saha, Director CII urged that Industry and Academia can always approach the CII Telangana IP Facilitation Cell in partnership with Government of Telangana for any assistance or guidance on IPR issues and protection.(Maxim News)