NI-MSME expects 25 IPR filings by March

The intellectual property facilitation centre (IPFC) for MSMEs at the National Institute for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise (ni-msme) is expecting 25 IPR (intellectual property rights) fillings by March 2011.

The centre, which was set up in August last year to protect copyrights, trademarks, patents and geographical indications (GI), has received a good response on IPR enquiry from the industry and individuals, N Srilakshmi, coordinator - IPFC, ni-msme, said.

“So far, we have received 11 filings from 10 small and one micro industry, including two trademarks, eight national patents and one copyright filing,” she added.

Stating that IPR awareness was quite low among the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), she said, “The MSMEs are usually not aware of their innovation and protection, so we are constantly working on creating awareness programmes,” she said.

The centre had conducted IPR awareness programmes for four clusters — imitation jewellry cluster at Machilipatnam, bulk drugs and pharma at Patancheru, electronics and IT at Hyderabad, and automotive industry at Guntur.

A cluster has more scope for research and development as many industries participate. Around 400 MSMEs had participated in the four clusters, she said. “We are planning to conduct programmes a mango jelly cluster at Kakinada and at a food processing cluster in Chittoor by January 2011,” she added.

The centre is planning to organise a two-day IPR awareness seminar in Hyderabad on November 19 and 22 for animation and IT industries.

“Generally, the big IT companies have a technical attorney or an in-house attorney to protect their software from infringement. But the small ones do not have such facilities. The seminar would focus on how best they can protect their products,” Vijay Kumar M, IP analyst, I-Win IP Services, said. I-Win IP services is a notified attorney for the centre.

Kumar said a lot of animation products were exported from Hyderabad and they were focusing on protecting characters designed by them. Around 200 participants from both the industries would participate in the seminar.

The integrated centre has 24 members, including the Association of Lady Entrepreneurs of Andhra Pradesh.