Prasad calls for more patent filings by local firms, academia

Concerned over multinationals using the country as a base to do research but filing patents overseas, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad today said there is a need to increase local innovation.
"Why (do) you become the innovator for someone...Become an innovator for yourself. Become an innovator for your country's cause," the Union IT Minister said at the Medical Electronics Innovation Summit at the prestigious IIT-Bombay.
Later, he told reporters that this is a matter of "concern".
Minister of State for Electronics and IT P P Chaudhary said multinationals save up to 40 per cent cost by doing R&D activities here, as they also get better talent willing to work hard.

He cited a study which said at the junior level, engineers with five years of experience get paid USD 18,000 per year here while their counterparts in the US get USD 84,000.
Prasad added that we have a "right to patent", saying the country has outstanding teachers, researchers, computer experts and thinkers.

He called for greater partnerships between the industry and academia and affirmed the government's commitment to facilitate this.
Asking the industry to share the benefits accrued through innovations with the academic world, Prasad also said that the government is planning to come out with a framework on such industry-academia partnerships.

"I would like CEOs to partner with these great academic minds across the country," he said.
Welcoming growth in startups, Prasad said 4,200 such new companies were incorporated last year and created over 85,000 jobs in the country.
Meanwhile, Prasad said the government is targeting to complete the BharatNet initiative, under which it is connecting every village with a 100 mbps internet connection, by 2018.
At the summit, an agreement was signed between the Society for Applied Electronics Engineering and Research and the Andhra Pradesh government for conducting joint and comprehensive assessment of health technologies, starting with the dual energy linear accelerator for cancer care.