University-Industry Partnership seminar at IIT Kharagpur

J. Sai Deepak from SpicyIP pointing to the MoU between Microsoft and IIT Law School reports on the recent University-Industry Partnership seminar at IIT Kharagpur:

"The one-day University-Industry Partnership seminar at Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law, IIT Kharagpur held on 3rd February witnessed the culmination of months of efforts between the IIT Law School and Microsoft India. The objective of the collaboration, as professed by both the parties, is towards enabling capacity building in IP law and policy.

Prof.Partha P. Chakraborty, Dean of the Sponsored Research and Consultancy (SRIC) Cell of IIT Kharagpur and the Head of the IIT Law School, Prof.S.Tripathy represented IIT Kharagpur, Amarchand Mangaldas which handles Microsoft's IP portfolio was represented by Mr.Ranjan Negi, a partner at the firm and a well-respected Copyright lawyer, while Microsoft India was represented by its Associate General Counsel Mr.Rakesh Bakshi, National Technology Officer Mr.Vijay Kapur and Ms.Ankhi Das.

Chief among the dignitaries were Dr.N.L.Mitra, Advisor to the IIT Law School and Dr.Prabuddha Ganguli, a renowned IP expert and the chief advisor to the Government of India on IP affairs. The other dignitaries to grace the occasion were Ms.Sunita Sreedharan, CEO of SKS Law Associates, Prof.Madhukar Sinha of IIFT, Delhi, Mr.Vinnie Mehta of MAIT, Mr.Chandramouli of Zinnov Management Consultants and Mr.Anjan Das, Senior Director of CII.

The possibility of an MIPL (Master of Intellectual Property Law) degree jointly offered by IIT Law School and the WIPO academy was broached with the latter being represented by Ms.Gao Hang and Ms.Martha Chikowore. Panel discussions were held all day long on the following topics with Mr.Peter Ollier, the Asia Editor of Managing Intellectual Property, as the moderator(On a different note, Mr.Ollier had warm words for the SpicyIP team.):

1.Role of R&D in a knowledge-based economy
2.From R&D to commercialisation: Universities & IPR
3.Challenges and Legal issues before Online Service Providers"

To read the blog post from SpicyIP click here.