IPR unique opportunity for 'Make in India' innovations: WIPO official

With Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) set to "play a major role" in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "Make in India" campaign, Indian innovators and businesses need to opt for the Madrid System of trademark registrations to manage their portfolios internationally, an IP official said Monday.

The International Registration of Marks (Madrid System) offers trademark (TM) owners a cost-effective, user-friendly and streamlined means of protecting and managing their trademark portfolio internationally.

It is governed by two treaties, the Madrid Agreement and the Madrid Protocol, and is administered by the International Bureau of World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), in Geneva, Switzerland.

According to Naresh Prasad, executive director and chief of staff in the office of the WIPO director general, IPR will become the key as India's strategy and economy shift from a services-led growth to a labour-intensive manufacturing-led growth.

"Now this provides a unique opportunity. If manufacturing units are going to set up their shops in India and if India is going to export its products abroad, IPR becomes key.

"Foreign investors coming into India would like to protect their IP. Indian companies wanting to sell their products abroad would need to have the right designs, right branding and right trademarks and would need to use the Madrid Protocol," Prasad said here.

He was speaking at a Confederation of Indian Industry-organised public awareness building seminar on the Madrid System. Prasad explained that with the System, businesses can file for trademark registrations in 90 countries with a single online application.

"So in this context, as Indian industry becomes more competitive and grows faster, protecting their innovations internationally will play a major role in the strategy," said Prasad.

India came on board the System in July last year and though the TM applications from the country have been "encouraging", more needs to be done to tap the small players.

"The growth has been encouraging. While there are over 11,000 designations from abroad, the Indian applications are about 185. This calls for a greater public awareness and bringing the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) under its ambit," said Prasad, adding that the big players are used to the System.