Centre for Internet and Society

MHRD IPR Chair Series: Information Received from IIT, Kanpur

nehaa — 2016-06-04T03:35:09Z

This post provides a factual description about the operation of Ministry of Human Resource Development IPR Chair’s Intellectual Property Education, Research and Public Outreach (IPERPO) scheme in IIT, Kanpur.

Nisha S Kumar assisted in compilation of the document.

The author has analysed all the data received under various heads such as income, grants from MHRD, planned and non-planned expenditure, nature and frequency of programmes organised and the allocation of funds for the same. Throughout the course of observation and presentation of the analysed data, the author seeks to trace the presence of unjustified underutilisation of funds by the aforementioned university as provided by the MHRD during the period of 2013-2014.

To collect the information for the given study, an RTI application was filed to the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur on 16/02/2015 by the Centre for Internet and Society. The reply to the same was received on 27/02/2015.

These are the documents received by CIS from IIT, Kanpur:

For the RTI application filed by the CIS click here
For the reply to the RTI application click here

IIT,Kanpur did not entertain the RTI and furnished no documents for perusal.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/mhrd-ipr-chair-series-information-received-from-iit-kanpur

MHRD IPR Chair Series: Information Received from IIT, Delhi

Karan Tripathi — 2016-02-22T02:46:38Z

The author has analysed all the data received under various heads such as income, grants from MHRD, planned and non planned expenditure, nature and frequency of programmes organised and the allocation of funds for the same. Throughout the course of observation and presentation of the analysed data, the author seeks to trace the presence of unjustified underutilisation of funds by the aforementioned university as provided by the MHRD during the period of 2003-2014. To collect the information for the given study, an RTI application was filed to the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi on 19/11/2014 by the Centre for Internet and Society. The reply to RTI application was received on 16/12/2014. These are the documents received by CIS from IIT Delhi:

For RTI Response click here <Response to Nov RTI >
For complete supporting documents click here <Response and Report >

Hereinafter, in order to receive any information about IIT Delhi’s RTI reply, kindly refer to the above mentioned links. Following are the queries mentioned in the RTI application along with their replies.

Reports on the implementation of the IPERPO scheme of the Ministry of Human Resource Development and the implementation of the MHRD IPR Chair funded under the scheme at IIT Delhi from 2003-2014

Reply: IIT Delhi has submitted all the documents in order to highlight the implementation of IPERPO scheme in the University for the period 1992-2011. Documents for the period 2012-2014 are not submitted by the University

Documents indicating the date on which such an IPR Chair was set up at your institution and a copy of the application made by IIT Delhi to the MHRD for instituting such an IPR Chair and documents received by IIT Delhi from the MHRD approving the same

Reply: At IIT Delhi, the IPR Chair under the IPERPO scheme was appointed in October 2007. All the supporting documents are submitted by the University

Documents detailing the release of grants to the MHRD IPR Chairs under the IPERPO Scheme

Reply: All the documents regarding the release of grants are submitted except for the period 2012-2014. The University mentioned in its reply that it did not receive any grant for the financial year 2013-2014.

Documents relating to receipts of utilisation certificates and audited expenditure statements and matters related to all financial sanctions with regard to funds granted to the MHRD IPR Chair established under the IPERPO scheme at IIT Delhi

Reply: The University has provided utilisation certificates only for the period 2009-2011.

Documents regarding all matters pertaining to finance and budget related the MHRD IPR Chair under the IPERPOs scheme established at IIT Delhi

Reply: No documents are provided for information sought under this track. In its reply the University mentioned that the query put forward by CIS is not specific.

Details of the IPR Chair’s salary under the IPERPO Scheme indicating whether this amount is paid over and above the professional’s usual salary

Reply: The University has submitted all the documents pertaining to the aforementioned query.

Comparative Analysis between University Response and the guidelines of MHRD Scheme Document
The Scheme Document of MHRD (http://copyright.gov.in/Documents/scheme.pdf) is a comprehensive document which consists of guidelines regarding Intellectual Property Education, Research and Public Outreach. It talks about a list of objectives, purposes, conditions and eligibility criteria for a University to ensure in order to implement IPERPO in a truest sense. This document provides the procedural as well as qualifying conditions for an Institute to ensure or fulfil before applying for the MHRD grant. Some of these conditions include maintenance of utilization certificates, audit reports, expenditure statements and event information which would be open to access on demand by MDHR or

Comptroller and Auditor General of India.

A. Objectives
In order to fulfil the objectives mentioned in the scheme document, IIT Delhi undertook following activities:
a. Faculty Development Program on IPR
b. Two MBA projects on IPR were introduced
c. Certificate courses on IPR & IP Services
d. National Conferences on IPR
e. IPR Related Research Publications

B. Eligibility
IIT Delhi is recognized by the University Grants Commission. Therefore, it fulfils the eligibility criteria mentioned in the scheme document.

Financial Analysis
The University has provided financial documents such as utilisation certificates and statements of expenditure only for the period 2010-2011. No documents are submitted for the period 2007-2009 and 2012-2014. The first grant of Rs. 25,00,000 was given to the University in 2006.

A. Financial Year 2010 -2011

In this financial year, a sum of Rs. 4,71,127 was sanctioned to the University out of which a sum of Rs. 1,45,000 was utilized and Rs. 3,26,127 was left as unspent balance.

In this financial year, the maximum amount of money was spent on salaries of the Chair Professor and his staff. Almost equal amount of money was utilised for organising workshops and procuring stationary.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/mhrd-ipr-chair-series-information-received-from-iit-delhi

MHRD IPR Chair Series: Information Received from IIT, Bombay

Karan Tripathi — 2016-02-22T14:34:19Z

To collect the information for the given study, an RTI application was filed to the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay on 17/03/2015 by the Centre for Internet and Society. The reply to RTI application was received on 10/04/2015.

These are the documents received by CIS from IIT Bombay:

For RTI Response click here <IIT Bombay - Response to RTI >
For complete supporting documents click here <IIT Bombay – Response and Report >

Hereinafter, in order to receive any information about IIT Bombay’s RTI reply, kindly refer to the above mentioned links. Following are the queries mentioned in the RTI application along with their replies.

Reports on the implementation of the IPERPO scheme of the Ministry of Human Resource Development and the implementation of the MHRD IPR Chair funded under the scheme at IIT Bombay from 2013-2014

Reply: IIT Bombay has submitted the documents required under this track. However, detailed documents highlighting the manner of implementation are not submitted by the University.

Documents detailing the release of grants to the MHRD IPR Chairs under the IPERPO Scheme

Reply: The University received a grant of Rs. 35,00,000 from MHRD on 12th December 2013 for incurring expenditure under IPR Chair activities under the scheme for Promotion of Copyright & IPR.

Documents relating to receipts of utilisation certificates and audited expenditure statements and matters related to all financial sanctions with regard to funds granted to the MHRD IPR Chair established under the IPERPO scheme at IIT Bombay.

Reply: Utilisation certificate for the financial year 2013-2014 is submitted by the University.

Documents regarding all matters pertaining to finance and budget related the MHRD IPR Chair under the IPERPOs scheme established at IIT Bombay

Reply: The University has provided expenditure statement for the period 2007-2014

Comparative Analysis between University Response and the guidelines of MHRD Scheme Document

The Scheme Document of MHRD (http://copyright.gov.in/Documents/scheme.pdf) is a comprehensive document which consists of guidelines regarding Intellectual Property Education, Research and Public Outreach. It talks about a list of objectives, purposes, conditions and eligibility criteria for a University to ensure in order to implement IPERPO in a truest sense. This document provides the procedural as well as qualifying conditions for an Institute to ensure or fulfil before applying for the MHRD grant. Some of these conditions include maintenance of utilization certificates, audit reports, expenditure statements and event information which would be open to access on demand by MDHR or Comptroller and Auditor General of India.

A. Objective
In order to fulfil the objectives mentioned in the scheme document, the University undertook following activities:
a. Granted two Ph.D. Fellowships
b. Introduced foundations courses at UG, PG Level and two full courses on Intellectual Property
c. Organised 2nd International Conference on MIPS 2014
d. Organised workshops on Patents and IP Policy
e. Enhanced the stock of IP books, journals and databases

B. Eligibility
IIT Bombay is recognized by the University Grants Commission. Therefore, it fulfils the eligibility criteria mentioned in the scheme document.

Financial Analysis

A. Utilization Details for the Financial Year 2013-2014

In this financial year, a grant of Rs. 35,00,000 was received by the University from MHRD which was added to the carried forward balance of Rs. 13,05,914. Out of the total amount of Rs. 48,05,914, a sum of Rs. 15,66,179 was utilized by the University for the purpose for which it was sanctioned.

B. Expenditure Analysis

This figure highlights that the cumulative expenditure for the period 2007-2010 is almost double the amount of expenditure incurred in other financial years. After this period, the maximum amount of money was spent in the financial year 2011-2012 and the least was spent in the financial year 2013-2014.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/mhrd-ipr-chair-series-information-received-from-iit-bombay

MHRD IPR Chair Series: Information Received from IIT Roorkee

Karan Tripathi and Nehaa Chaudhari — 2015-11-21T07:26:45Z

Nehaa Chaudhari provided inputs, analysed, reviewed and edited this blog post.

To collect the information for the given study, an RTI application was filed to the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee on 6/02/2015 by the Centre for Internet and Society. The reply to RTI application was received on 16/02/2015.

These are the documents received by CIS from IIT Roorkee:

For RTI Response click here (IIT Roorkee -Receipt of RTI- 20.4.15)
For complete supporting documents click here (IIT Roorkee – Response and Report)

Hereinafter, in order to receive any information about IIT Roorkee’s RTI reply, kindly refer to the above mentioned links.

Following are the queries mentioned in the RTI application along with their replies.

Reports on the implementation of the IPERPO scheme of the Ministry of Human Resource Development and the implementation of the MHRD IPR Chair funded under the scheme at IIT Roorkee from 2003-20014
Reply: The University documented the minutes of the Departmental Faculty Committee Meeting where proposals for forming Departmental Administrative Committee, syllabus for new institute electives, duties of Departmental Research Committee, forming Institute Time Table Committee, conversion of existing LR1 computer lab and teaching scheme of autumn semester 2013 were deliberated upon. The University also organised various events such as Training of Trainers programme and International Conclave on Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
Documents indicating the date on which such an IPR Chair was set up at your institution and a copy of the application made by IIT Roorkee to the MHRD for instituting such an IPR Chair and documents received by IIT Roorkee from the MHRD approving the same
Reply: According to the Office Memorandum (dated 04 May 2012) of IIT Roorkee, Dr P.K. Ghosh had been appointed on the position of Professional Chair on IPERPO with effect from April 27 2012. A suitable financial grant of Rs. 208.02 lakhs was demanded for a period of five years.
Documents detailing the release of grants to the MHRD IPR Chairs under the IPERPO Scheme
Reply: As it appears from the reply filed by IIT Roorkee to the RTI filed by the CIS, Rs. 30,00,000.00 of the Grant in aid was sanctioned to the University by the MHRD during the financial year 2010-2011 and nil amount was utilized for the purpose of it. At the end of the year, the balance sum of Rs. 30,27,041 (including the interest) was surrendered to the Government.
Documents relating to receipts of utilisation certificates and audited expenditure statements and matters related to all financial sanctions with regard to funds granted to the MHRD IPR Chair established under the IPERPO scheme at IIT Roorkee
Reply: IIT Roorkee has replied with a series of Statement of Expenditure ranging from 2010-2014 that explains its rate of expenditure and amount of interest accumulated and surrendered to the Government along with the unutilized amount. In the financial year 2011-2012 the unutilized expenditure was 3,105,159.00 which came down to 11,74, 026.00 in 2012-2013 due to which a grant of Rs. 24,00,000.00 was extended to the University by MHRD for the financial year 2013-2014.
Documents regarding all matters pertaining to finance and budget related the MHRD IPR Chair under the IPERPOs scheme established at IIT Roorkee
Reply: CIS did not receive any sort of clarity on matters pertaining to finance and budget related to MHRD IPR Chair under the IPERPO scheme as the response for this question was coupled with the previous question on utilization certificates.
Details of the IPR Chair’s salary under the IPERPO Scheme indicating whether this amount is paid over and above the professional’s usual salary
Reply: According to the RTI reply, the position of Chair Professor is awarded for a period of three years or upto 68 years of age, whichever is earlier. The pay of Chair Professor is fixed as per the rules and guidelines of Professional Chair in the institute.

2.0 Comparative Analysis between University Response and the guidelines of MHRD Scheme Document

The Scheme Document of MHRD is a comprehensive document which consists of guidelines regarding Intellectual Property Education, Research and Public Outreach. It talks about a list of objectives, purposes, conditions and eligibility criteria for a University to ensure in order to implement IPERPO in a truest sense. This document provides the procedural as well as qualifying conditions for an Institute to ensure or fulfil before applying for the MHRD grant. Some of these conditions include maintenance of utilization certificates, audit reports, expenditure statements and event information which would be open to access on demand by MDHR or Comptroller and Auditor General of India.

A. Objectives:

As it appears from the reply statement of IIT Roorkee, each and every event organised after the establishment of IPR Chair in 2012, where the funds from the grant have been utilized, is done to promote the scholarly as well as academic interests in the field of Intellectual Property. Even before applying for the MHRD grant, the University has organised many National Seminars and has started various short term courses in order to encourage research and excellence in Intellectual Property. This fact completely resonates with the core objective of MHRD scheme document, i.e. strengthening the academic and research discourses in the field of Intellectual Property.

B. Eligibility:
IIT Roorkee is recognized by the University Grants Commission. Therefore, it fulfils the eligibility criteria mentioned in the scheme document.

C. Conditions for Grant of Assistance
There are several conditions laid down in the scheme document which need to be fulfilled by the concerned University in order to successfully receive the grant. The underlying condition is the dissemination and development in the field of Intellectual Property Rights.

According to the documents available with CIS, IIT Roorkee has organised at least 27 events in the field of IPR ranging from introduction of new electives, National Workshops and Symposiums, Expert Lectures, Infrastructure Development, Online portals for IP Administration and awareness and infrastructure development.

3.0 Financial Analysis of IIT Roorkee’s IPR Grant

According to the RTI reply, the IPR Chair at IIT Roorkee was established in the forenoon of 27th April 2012 with Dr P.K. Ghosh as its Chairman. Dr Ghosh was promised an Honorarium payment of Rs. 30,000 per month and a Contingency payment of Rs. 20,000 per month.

3.1 Financial Year 2010-2011

In this financial year, the IPR Chair was not established at IIT Roorkee. The total grant received by the University was Rs. 30, 00,000.00 out of which Rs.0 was utilized for the purpose of it was sanctioned.

At the end of the financial year, the remaining amount of Rs. 30,00,000, (due to Nil utilisation) along with the interest of Rs. 27041 was either surrendered to the government or adjusted towards the grants-in-aid payable during the next financial year.

3.2 Financial Year 2011-2012

The IPR Chair was still not established at the University. The opening balance was the amount carried forward from the previous year (30,27,041) upon which interest of Rs. 1,17,117 was received making the total receipt to be 31,144,158. Out of this, a total of Rs. 38,999 was utilised for travelling and miscellaneous expenditure. At the end of the year, the remaining of amount of Rs. 3,105,159 was either surrendered to the government or adjusted towards the grant-in-aid payable during the next financial year 2012-2013. As per the documents available with CIS, the statement of expenditure for this financial year has not been submitted by the university.

3.3 Financial Year 2012-2013

In this financial year the IPR Chair was established with Dr. P.K. Ghosh as its Chairman. The Opening balance was the amount carried forward from the previous financial year (31,05,159) upon which an interest income of Rs.1,25,376 was received along with a refund of advance amounting to Rs. 42,968. Out of the total receipt of Rs. 32,73,503 the total expenditure of the University on the current financial year was Rs. 20,99,477. The remaining amount of Rs. 11,74,026 was either surrendered to the government or adjusted towards the grants-in-aid payable during the next financial year 2013-2014.

3.4 Financial Year 2013-2014

In this financial year, the University received a grant of Rs. 24,00,000 from the government along with the amount carried forward from the previous financial year (Rs.11,74,026) upon which an interest income of Rs. 55,892 was received. Out of this, a sum of Rs. 24,01,045 was utilised as contingency expenditure. The remaining amount of Rs. 12,28,873 has been either surrendered to the government or adjusted towards the grants-in-aid payable during the next financial year 2014-2015.

In this financial year, the expenditure on library (5,00,979) is the only sum which exceeded the sanctioned amount (5,00,000). Moreover, there has been no expenditure on Outreach Program and Clinics. The honorarium payment to the IPR Chair Professor is similar to the sanctioned amount (3,60,000) but there’s a difference in his contingent payment (1,39,645 instead of 2,40,000). The total amount of expenditure in this financial year is Rs. 24,01,045.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/mhrd-ipr-chair-series-information-received-from-iit-roorkee

MHRD IPR Chair Series: Information Received from IIM, Bangalore

nehaa — 2016-05-21T09:13:30Z

To collect the information for the given study, an RTI application was filed to the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore by the Centre for Internet and Society. The reply to RTI application was received on 16/12/2014. There was a further correspondence through email between the University and CIS following which additional supporting documents were provided by the University.

These are the documents received by CIS from IIM, Bangalore:

For response to the RTI application click here
For response to the email click here
For the report provided by IIM, Bangalore click here

Hereinafter, in order to receive any information about IIM, Bangalore’s RTI reply, kindly refer to the above mentioned links. Following are the queries mentioned in the RTI application along with their replies.

Reports on the implementation of the IPERPO scheme of the Ministry of Human Resource Development and the implementation of the MHRD IPR Chair funded under the scheme at IIM, Bangalore
Reply: IIM, Bangalore has submitted the documents required under this track. To view all the documents submitted by the University in reply, click here.
Documents detailing the release of grants to the MHRD IPR Chairs under the IPERPO Scheme
Reply: Documents pertaining to the financial years2005-06, 2007-08 and the period of 2012-2013 have been submitted by the University. To view the supporting documents click here.
Documents relating to receipts of utilisation certificates and audited expenditure statements and matters related to all financial sanctions with regard to funds granted to the MHRD IPR Chair established under the IPERPO scheme at IIM, Bangalore.
Reply: The University has provided utilisation certificate for the period of 2007-2014. To view the supporting documents, click here.
Details of the IPR Chair’s salary under the IPERPO Scheme indicating whether this amount is paid over and above the professional’s usual salary
Reply: The University has submitted the extract pertaining to the aforementioned query. To view the supporting documents submitted by the University, click here.

Comparative Analysis between University Response and the guidelines of MHRD Scheme Document

A. Objectives
In order to fulfil the objectives mentioned in the scheme document, IIM, Bangalore undertook following activities:
a. Introduction of electives at PGP and PGSEM level.
b. Promoting IPR related publications and case writing.
c. Provided input to the MHRD on matters pertaining to IPR.
d. Conducting multiple workshops over the years to further the training of teachers as well as at a student level
e. Hosting numerous conclaves and conferences on the subject of IPR and their relation to business
f. Held various symposiums, seminars and conferences for the furtherance of IPR
B. Eligibility
Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore is recognized by the University Grants Commission. Therefore, it fulfils the eligibility criteria mentioned in the scheme document.

Financial Analysis

A.Financial year 2007-08

The University received a grant of Rs. 5,00,000 with an incurred expenditure amounting to Rs. 7,45,000.

B. Financial year 2008-09

The University received Rs. 10,00,000 as a sanctioned grant by the MHRD out of which an expense of Rs. 1,09,307 was incurred. After settling with last year’s due balance, the unspent balance amounts to Rs. 8,95,000.

C. Financial year 2009-10

The University did not receive any grant from the MHRD in this year, however it utilized completely the carried forward balance of last year.

D. Financial year 2010-11

The University did not receive any grant from the MHRD in this year, however it incurred an expenditure of Rs. 38,84,000 in the implementation of the IPERPO scheme.

E. Financial year 2011-12

The University received a grant of Rs. 61,53,000 and incurred an expenditure of Rs. 60,89,295 leaving an unspent balance of Rs. 63,705.

F. Financial year 2012-13

The University received a grant of Rs. 27,00,000 from the MHRD which, in addition to the previous year’s carried forward balance amounted to Rs. 277,63,705. Out of this, the University utilized a sum of Rs. 25,35,206 for the purpose for which it was sanctioned leaving Rs. 2,28,499 as unspent balance.

G. Financial year 2013-14

The University received a grant of Rs. 23,50,000 from the MHRD which, in addition to the previous year’s unutilized balance amounted to Rs. 25,78,499. The university incurred an expense of Rs. 27,19,349.

Expenditure Analysis

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/mhrd-ipr-chair-series-information-received-from-iim-bangalore

MHRD IPR Chair Series: Information Received from IIM, Ahmedabad

nehaa — 2016-05-17T02:31:38Z

To collect the information for the given study, an RTI application was filed to the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad on 24/11/2014 by the Centre for Internet and Society. The reply to RTI application was received on 09/12/2014. Following this, a second RTI application was filed by the Centre of Internet and Society on 09/02/21015. The reply to the same was received on 23/02/2015.

These are the documents received by CIS from IIM, Ahmedabad:

For response to first RTI application, click here
For response to second RTI application, click here

Hereinafter, in order to receive any information about IIM Ahmedabad’s RTI reply, kindly refer to the above mentioned links. Following are the queries mentioned in the RTI application along with their replies.

Reports on the implementation of the IPERPO scheme of the Ministry of Human Resource Development and the implementation of the MHRD IPR Chair funded under the scheme at IIM Ahmedabad.
Reply: IIM Ahmedabad responded that there has not been any institution of the post of IPR Chair at the University.
Documents detailing the release of grants to the MHRD IPR Chairs under the IPERPO Scheme
Reply: The University has provided no documents on the subject.
Documents relating to receipts of utilisation certificates and audited expenditure statements and matters related to all financial sanctions with regard to funds granted to the MHRD IPR Chair established under the IPERPO scheme at IIM Ahmedabad.
Reply: The University has provided no documents on the subject.
Details of the IPR Chair’s salary under the IPERPO Scheme indicating whether this amount is paid over and above the professional’s usual salary
Reply: The University has provided no documents on the subject.

A. Objectives

The University has not provided any documents detailing any activities undertaken to further the objectives of the IPERPO scheme.

B. Eligibility

IIM, Ahmedabad is recognized by the University Grants Commission. Therefore, it fulfils the eligibility criteria mentioned in the scheme document.

Financial Analysis

The University has not provided any documents on this subject.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/mhrd-ipr-chair-series-information-received-from-iim-ahmedabad

MHRD IPR Chair Series: Information Received from Delhi University

nehaa — 2016-05-15T12:18:40Z

The author has analysed all the data received through which, the author seeks to trace the presence of unjustified underutilisation of funds by the aforementioned university as provided by the MHRD during the period of 2013-2014. To collect the information for the given study, an RTI application was filed to Delhi University on 09/02/2015 by the Centre for Internet and Society. The reply to RTI application was received on 25/02/2015.

These are the documents received by CIS from Delhi University:

For the response to the RTI application click here

Hereinafter, in order to receive any information about Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University’s RTI reply, kindly refer to the above mentioned links. Following are the queries mentioned in the RTI application along with their replies.

Reports on the implementation of the IPERPO scheme of the Ministry of Human Resource Development and the implementation of the MHRD IPR Chair funded under the scheme at the Delhi School of Economics.
Reply: The University submitted that there are no reports on the implementation of the IPERPO scheme or the MHRD IPR Chair funded under the same. Additionally, the implementation of the scheme commended at Delhi University w.e.f 20th Feb., 2014. Dr. Rekha Chaturvedi joined as the IPR Chair (Technical) on the same date.
Documents on the release of grants to the MHRD IPR Chairs under the IPERPO scheme at the Delhi University, Delhi School of Economics for the year 2013-14.
Reply: The University submitted that there has been no release of grants by the Human Resource and Development Ministry under the IPERPO Scheme.
Documents relating to receipts of utilization certificates and audited expenditure statements and matters related to all financial sanctions with regard to funds granted to the MHRD IPR Chair established under the IPERPO Scheme for the year 2013-14 at the Delhi University, Delhi School of Economics.
Reply: The University replied that as there has been no release of grants under the IPERPO scheme, the question of utilization certificates and audited expenditure or any other matter related to financial sanctions with regard to the funds does not arise.
Documents regarding all matters related to finance and budget related to the MHRD IPR Chair under the IPERPO scheme 2013-14 established at Delhi University, Delhi School of Economics.
Reply: The University did not submit any documents in this regard and asserted that the information sought is not specific.

A. Objectives
The University has not provided any documents detailing any activities undertaken to further the objectives of the IPERPO scheme.

B. Eligibility
Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University is recognized by the University Grants Commission. Therefore, it fulfils the eligibility criteria mentioned in the scheme document.

Financial Analysis

The University has not provided any documents on this subject.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/mhrd-ipr-chair-series-information-received-from-delhi-university

MHRD IPR Chair Series: Information Received from Cochin University of Science and Technology

Karan Tripathi — 2016-02-21T16:09:51Z

To collect the information for the given study, an RTI application was filed to the CUSAT on 07/01/2015 by the Centre for Internet and Society. The reply to RTI application was received on 05/02/2015. These are the documents received by CIS from CUSAT:

For RTI Response click here
For complete supporting documents (Report and response to RTI)

Hereinafter, in order to receive any information about CUSAT’s RTI reply, kindly refer to the above mentioned links. Following are the queries mentioned in the RTI application along with their replies.

Reports on the implementation of the IPERPO scheme of the Ministry of Human Resource Development and the implementation of the MHRD IPR Chair funded under the scheme at CUSAT from 2013-2014
Reply: The University has submitted the report on the implementation of IPERPO scheme along with the supporting documents

Documents detailing the release of grants to the MHRD IPR Chairs under the IPERPO Scheme
Reply: According to the documents submitted to CIS, CUSAT received no grant from MHRD for the period 2013-2014

Documents relating to receipts of utilisation certificates and audited expenditure statements and matters related to all financial sanctions with regard to funds granted to the MHRD IPR Chair established under the IPERPO scheme at CUSAT
Reply: All the documents related to utilisation certificate and expenditure statement for the period 2013-2014 are submitted by the University

Comparative Analysis between University Response and the guidelines of MHRD Scheme Document

A. Objectives
CUSAT organised following activities in order to comply with the objectives mentioned in the scheme document:
a. Introduced post graduate courses in IPR
b. Policy Research in the field of IP and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore
c. Research Publications in the field of compulsory licensing
d. Organised World Intellectual Property Day on 26th April 2013

B. Eligibility
CUSAT is recognized by the University Grants Commission. Therefore, it fulfils the eligibility criteria mentioned in the scheme document.

Financial Analysis

This section only deals with the financial year 2013-2014

In this financial year no grant was received by CUSAT and its total expenditure was Rs. 27,20,148.

In this financial year, the maximum amount of money was spent on International Travel. A total sum of Rs. 27,20,148 is due from MHRD.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/mhrd-ipr-chair-series-information-received-from-cochin-university-of-science-and-technology

Methodology: Statements of Working (Form 27) of Indian Mobile Device Patents

rohini — 2017-09-10T15:19:51Z

In India, if a patent is not locally worked within three years of its issuance, any person may request a compulsory license, and if the patent is not adequately worked within two years of the grant of such a compulsory license, it may be revoked. In order to provide the public with information about patent working, India requires every patentee to file an annual statement on “Form 27” describing the working of each of its issued Indian patents. We conducted the first comprehensive and systematic study of all Forms 27 filed with respect to mobile devices. We tried to empirically establish the extent to which patentees and licensees comply with the statutory requirement to declare information about the working of their patents. Research assistance was provided by interns Anna Liz Thomas and Nayana Dasgupta.

The research paper on patent landscape, Patents and Mobile Devices in India: An Empirical Survey, [PDF] was published in the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law (2017).

The research paper on "Patent Working Requirements and Complex Products: An Empirical Assessment of India's Form 27 Practice and Compliance" has been published here (July 2017).

The dataset of all the Form 27 studied for this paper has been published here.

Research Questions

How many annual Form 27 submissions have been made to the Indian Patent Office for 4,419 granted patents identified in the landscape of mobile device patents in India?
How many patents have no corresponding Form 27 filed yet?
How many Form 27 submissions from those found are defective?
Is there an identifiable pattern in the defects and discrepancies?
Is there any discernible trend in filing of Form 27 over time and with respect to patent owners?

The objective of this paper is to quantitatively determine the extent to which patentees and licensees comply with the statutory requirement to declare information about the working of their patents according to Section 146(2) of the Patents Act, 1970 read with Rule 131 of the Patent Rules, 2003.

Section 146(2): Without prejudice to the provisions of sub-section (1), every patentee and every licensee (whether exclusive or otherwise) shall furnish in such manner and form and at such intervals (not being less than six months) as may be prescribed statements as to the extent to which the patented invention has been worked on a commercial scale in India.

Rule 131: Form and manner in which statements required under section 146(2) to be furnished

The statements shall be furnished by every patentee and every licensee under sub-section (2) of section 146 in Form 27 which shall be duly verified by the patentee or the licensee or his authorised agent.
The statements referred to in sub-rule (1) shall be furnished in respect of every calendar year within three months of the end of each year.
The Controller may publish the information received by him under sub-section (1) or sub-section (2) of section 146.

Object

The research object is Form 27 submissions made annually to the Indian Patent Office for the 4,419 granted patents.

4,052 of these patents were identified in the landscape (“the patent landscape”) developed by the Centre for Internet and Society as a part of ongoing research on patents pertaining to sub-USD-100 mobile devices sold in India. The dataset of the patent landscape can be accessed here. Another 367 patents pertaining to mobile technology identified during the landscaping exercise but excluded from it, were added to the initial set of 4,052 patents.

A blank copy of Form 27 is available here. The pro forma is defined as per Schedule II of Patent Rules, 2003.

Research Methods

[Corresponding research questions

How many annual Form 27 submissions have been made to the Indian Patent Office for 4,419 granted patents identified in the landscape of mobile device patents in India?
How many patents have no corresponding Form 27 filed yet?
How many Form 27 submissions from those found are defective?]

Outsourcing the searching of the submitted copies of Form 27 to a contractor

Owing to the repetitive nature of the process for collecting the forms, as well the large scale of the project, the task of searching was outsourced to a contractor. Price quotations were invited from five data entry operators and two firms of patent attorneys. On the basis of the quotation, deliverable time, scope and nature of the results delivered, and quality assurance, the contract was awarded to one firm. The firm offered the best price for a commensurate deliverable time and assured quality of results.

Form 27 retrieval online

Form 27 were searched from IPAIRS (Indian Patent Information Retrieval System) and InPASS (Indian Patent Advanced Search System) public databases of the Indian Patent Office.

InPASS has two features: Application Status and E-Register. We checked both features, in case forms not found through one could be located through the other. We indeed found that, sometimes, the forms not available on E-register could be found through the Application Status table, and vice versa.

Case 1: Accessing form 27 using Application Status tab on INPASS

A search portal is located at ipindiaservices.gov.in/publicsearch.

Enter the patent number in the “Patent Number” search field without the kind codes (IN) and click on “Search”. E.g., for patent number IN263932B, enter ‘263932’ in the “Patent Number” field.
Once the queried patent is displayed, select the “Application Status” tab to access the list of documents that were filed for the requested patent.

In the Application Status tab, scroll down to the bottom to view “Application Status table”. Click on the “View Documents” button to access the list of the documents filed for the queried patent. A pop-up window opens with the results.

In the window, a list of hyperlinks to various documents is displayed. Sometimes Form 27/ working statement is explicitly named so. At other times, it may have a different title. Once you click on the form 27 link, a PDF file opens in a new tab. There may be more than one Form 27 in the list of documents as Form 27 is an annual submission.

Case 2: No record of Form 27 found (Application status tab)

If the form is not present on InPASS, that is, if it has not been uploaded to the website, or if it has not been submitted to the Indian Patent Office (IPO), then it will not be displayed in the list of documents described in Case 1, step 5. Such instances have been logged as “No record found”.

Case 3: Accessing form 27 using E-Register tab on INPASS

At http://ipindiaservices.gov.in/publicsearch, a patent search portal is displayed. Enter the patent number by following the same steps as described in Case 1 until the queried patent is displayed. Select the “E-register” tab to access the e-register data corresponding to the queried patent.

In the “E-register” tab, scroll to the bottom to view the “Information u/s 146” table. The “Information u/s 146” table includes a list of Form 27 filed for the queried patent. As visible in the screenshot below, on clicking the “261762_2015” hyperlink, Form 27 for the queried patent opens. There could be multiple form 27s corresponding to different years.

Case 4: No record of Form 27 found (E-register)

If the form is not present in the E-register, that is, if it has not been uploaded to the website or if it has not been submitted to the IPO, then the E-Register tab displays “Eregister Not Available”.

Case 5: Searching on IPAIRS

Both InPASS and IPAIRS fetch forms from the same URL. However, we observed that one search engine sometimes displays the forms when the other doesn’t. The IPAIRS search engine was used when Form 27 was not found on InPASS.

IPAIRS patent search homepage: http://ipindiaonline.gov.in/patentsearch/search/index.aspx On the home page, in the Application Status tab, enter the full patent application number and CAPTCHA.
A window containing information pertaining to the patent application opens. At the bottom of the window, there is a “View Documents” button.

On clicking on “View Documents”, a new window with list of hyperlinked documents opens as described in Case 1, Step 5.

The URL for the new window displayed via “View Documents” on IPAIRS is the same as the URL displayed via “View Documents” in the “Application Status” tab on InPASS. For example, for patent number 263932, the URL for this window is the same on IPAIRS and InPASS: http://ipindiaonline.gov.in/patentsearch/GrantedSearch/viewdoc.aspx?id=Bx6eZ7YQLgsl3yH1LqKHjg==&loc=wDBSZCsAt7zoiVrqcFJsRw==

Form 27 retrieval via Right To Information (RTI) requests

CIS filed two requests under the RTI Act, 2005 with the Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs, and Trade Marks in Mumbai.

CIS' RTI application to the Indian Patent Office in Mumbai, March 2016 [PDF]. The IPO's reply, April 2016 [PDF].

(View text: https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/rti-request-to-indian-patents-office-for-form-27-statement-of-working-of-patents-march-2016)

CIS' RTI application to the IPO in Mumbai, June 2015 [PDF]. The IPO's reply, June 2015 [PDF].

(View text: https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/rti-request-to-indian-patents-office-for-form-27-statement-of-working-of-patents-2015)

InPASS and IPAIRS yielded Form 27 for 1,999 patents out of 4,419. For Form 27 pertaining to 61 of the remaining patents, CIS made a request in March 2016 under the Right to Information Act (2005) to the office of the Indian Patent Office located in Mumbai.

How the 61 patents were chosen
37 of the 50 companies in the patent landscape owned granted patents. We took one patent from each of the 37 companies. [See Annexure 4 (PDF)of Methodology: Patent landscaping in the Indian mobile device market] The remaining were patents litigated in India, as well as patents transferred from one of the companies in the landscape to another.

IPO’s reply to the March 2016 RTI application
The IPO replied in April 2016 that it could provide CIS with forms for eleven of the requested patents. As for the rest of the forms, the IPO stated, “As thousand [sic] of Form-27 are filed in this office, it is very difficult to segregate Form-27 for the patent numbers enlisted in your RTI application as it needs diversion of huge official/ staff manpower and it will affect day to day [sic] work of this office.”

Repeating the Form 27 search online

A few days after CIS received the reply from the IPO, Form 27 pertaining to patents in the landscape started appearing on InPASS and IPAIRS E-register portal. CIS’ contractor repeated the search for forms for all 4,419 patents as some forms filed in 2016 and 2015 were found. Forms for additional 1,003 patents were found, taking the number of patents with at least one corresponding form to 3,002.

Of the 1,417 patents for which forms were not found, 481 are either expired or there is no log corresponding to them in the E-Register.

Schema for the results

Information from the Form 27 was logged into a spreadsheet with the following heads:
Serial Number -- Assignee -- Patent Number -- Status -- Application Date -- Grant Date -- Title -- Application Number -- Form 27 presence -- Multiple Forms -- Number of years -- Year -- If Worked -- Working/ Non-working Status -- Working/ Non-working Information -- Licensing Status -- Licensing Information -- Comments.

Detailed legend and process of logging the results

Assignee: Name of the company that owns the patent. Annexure 4 [PDF] lists 50 companies studied for the patent landscape. 37 of those companies owned patents in India. Thus, the assignee could be one of 37 companies among the 50 in Annexure 4. Where two assignees are mentioned, the patent was transferred from the second assignee to the first on account of sale of the patent, company merger, etc. For example, "Huawei|NEC" indicates that a patent that belonged to NEC was transferred to Huawei.

Form 27 presence: Whether or not Form 27 was found. Entries in this column are either “Yes” or “No”. If case Form 27 was not found, the subsequent columns are unpopulated.

Multiple Forms: If more than one Form 27 was found, the number of years for which it was found. In some cases, more than one form was found for the same patent for the same year. We have considered these instances as a single form for the same year and noted the defect in the “Comments” column.

Year: The year for which the form was filed. This information was found in #2 of the pro forma of Form 27. In the case of patents with Form 27 filed for more than one year, the entries for different years have been logged into consecutive rows.

If Worked: This information was found in 3(i) of the pro forma. Depending on whether the text of Form 27 states that the patent was “worked” or “not worked”, results have been logged as either “Yes” or “No”. In instances where it is not explicitly stated whether the patent has been worked or not, or where 3(i) is blank, the results are logged as “Not disclosed” with a description of the defect in the “Comments” column.

Working/ Non-working status: Corresponds to 3(i)a in the case of patents stated as “worked” and to 3(i)b in the case of those stated as “not worked”. The results have been marked as:

Description is generic (future use)
Description is generic (present use)
Description is specific
No description

Description is generic (future use): No specific information been provided as required by 3(i)a or 3(i)b. The description indicates that in the future the patentee might “work” or license the patent or do both. E.g: “May be worked in the future depending on the market demand and when technology is mature.”

“We are still assessing the commercial and technological aspects of working of this patent in India and negotiating marketing and distribution of patented product with related parties.”

“Technical developments [sic] are still continuing” or “Negotiations and technical developments [sic] are still continuing”.

Description is generic (present use): No specific information been provided as required by 3(i)a or 3(i)b. The description indicates that the patentee may be “working” the patent. E.g:, “DUE TO THE NATURE OF THE INVENTION, IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO DETERMINE ACCURATELY WHETHER THE PATENTED INVENTION HAS BEEN WORKED IN INDIA OR NOT. Improvements in the invention are continuing to be made. The Patentee is actively looking for licensees and customers to commercialise the invention in the Indian environment.”

“... This patent is among a large number of patents in the patentee’s complex portfolio which may cover the products services and embedded technologies provided by the patentee or its licensee(s) in India. This patent might worked [sic] in India in some of the patentee(s) existing or future products, services and embedded technologies. Given the extremely Iarge number of patents that may apply to any given product or service of the patentee, it is very difficult to Identify and accurately update which of those patents would apply to the numerous products, services and embedded technologies.”

Description is specific: Specific information has been provided as required in 3(i)a or 3(i)b.

E.g, “Quantum of the patented product-303520 and value of the patented product in INR-2790524299”.

No description: 3(i)a and 3(i)b are blank.

Working/non-working information: Contains the full text of the descriptions mentioned in “Working/non-working status” column. These have been reproduced verbatim from Form 27 filings.

Licensing status: States whether or not the patent has been licensed as per 3(ii) of the pro forma for Form 27. Results are logged as “Yes” (licensed), “No” (no-licensed), “Cross-licensed” and “Not disclosed”.

“Not disclosed” indicates that the response to 3(ii) is either blank or there is an explicit statement that licensing information would not be disclosed on Form 27. E.g: “As all the licenses are confidential in nature, the details pertaining to the same are not being disclosed herein and may be provided to the Patent Office as and when the same is specifically directed by the Patent Office under sealed cover so that such details are not laid open in public domain.”

Licensing information: Contains the full text of the response reproduced verbatim from 3(ii). (Blank fields when there is no text in 3(ii))

For patents marked as licensed, this column contains the names and addresses of licensees and/ or sub-licensees.

For patents marked as not-licensed, this column is either blank or contains statements such as, “Information Not readily available; efforts will be made to collect and submit further information, if asked for.”, “None”, “No licensees”.

For patents marked as “cross-licensed”, the patentee states that it has a cross-licensing agreement with its licensees. E.g: “There is a cross license agreement between <company name> and at least one licensee, giving mutual rights to produce despite monopoly afforded by patents that are hold by any of the companies. There is no information available on whether the technology of said patent is included products sold by such licensee. As all the licenses are confidential in nature, the details pertaining to the same shall be provided under specific directions from the Patent Office.”

Comments: Contains information about defects and notable observations from the Form 27 submissions.

Validation of results

Validation of the results was done via deduplication first and then random sampling of 10% of the results.

Analysis of results

[Corresponding research questions:
4. Is there an identifiable pattern in the defects and discrepancies?
5. Is there any discernible trend in filing of Form 27 over time and with respect to patent owners?]

The results logged into the spreadsheet were analysed to find a pattern in the defects in the submissions. Visualisations will be created, if necessary.

Prior Art

Extraordinary writ petition in the matter of a public interest litigation, filed in the High Court of Delhi, Shamnad Basheer vs Union of India and others, C.M. No. 5590 of 2015 http://spicyip.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/FORM-27-WP-1R-copy.pdf

The petitioner(s) “sought to investigate the commercial working of certain patented inventions in India, particularly in relation to three key areas”. One of these areas include telecommunications technology. Para 53 to 58 of the writ elucidate on the petitioners’ observations and findings on “High technology patents and trolls”, while para 59 and 60 refer to the linkage between patents and products. Annexure P-8 of this petition contains copies of Form 27 filed by Ericsson in India. Annexure P-11 contains a “summary of findings of Form 27 investigations conducted by the petitioner”. Annexure P-4 (II. Telecommunications Sector) contains a list of 58 patents pertaining to the telecommunications domain in India. 21 of these are coincide with the patent landscape mentioned in “Research Object”.
Basheer had published a report in 2011 based on the findings of his RTI investigation of Form 27 pertaining to pharmaceutical patents in India. The report titled “RTI Applications and “Working” of Foreign Drugs in India?” is available at: http://www.spicyip.com/docs/Workingpatents.doc The report sheds light on lack of filing, incomplete filing and violation of patent working norms by pharmaceutical companies. He states having encountered difficulties during the RTI process: The RTI process was a very arduous one, with the patent office refusing information or claiming missing files in some cases. We had to resort to the appellate procedure in almost all cases. And in one case concerning the drugs Tarceva and Sutent, both the CPIO (Delhi office) and the appellate authority refused to provide information. We had to then take the matter up directly with Controller General PH Kurian who immediately ordered that the information be provided. Upon his instructions, the information was provided within 24 hours. However, we received this information only on the 4^th of April 2011, more than 6 months since we began the RTI process! (Source: Drug Firms and Patent "Working": Extent of Compliance with Form 27 http://spicyip.com/2011/04/drug-firms-and-patent-working-extent-of.html

Limitations

If Form 27 is not found on InPASS or INPAIRS, it is not possible to determine if the form has not been submitted to the IPO or it has been submitted but the IPO has not uploaded it. There is no publicly available database or log where such information is available.
Technical issues with the IPAIRS website hampered the speed of searching for and downloading Form 27. At the time of trial run in May 2015, the website was not available for nearly a week. Technical issues also lead to conflicting search results on IPAIRS and INPASS at times. For example, the form may be available via one search engine but not via another, even though they are fetched the files from the same database. Runtime errors occur due to browser caching.

Edited, September 10, 2017: To add -- URLs of the research paper on Form 27 published in July 2017, and of the dataset containing raw data, which was published and licensed CC-BY-SA 4.0.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/methodology-statements-of-working-form-27-of-indian-mobile-device-patents

Methodology: Patent Landscaping in the Indian Mobile Device Market

rohini — 2017-02-15T14:05:38Z

Through the patent landscaping exercise, we have identified patents pertaining to Internet-enabled mobile devices sold in India for USD 100 or less. The findings from this exercise are being used to develop legal strategies to reduce patent-based impediments to the widespread and rapid proliferation of this beneficial technology throughout India. The research methodology adopted for the patent landscaping exercise has been delineated here. This document is a work in progress.

1. Research Questions

Are there indications of increasing patent filing over time by the mobile device industry in India?
What patents pertain to capabilities commonly found in networked mobile devices sold in India for USD 100 or less?
What are the existing patent pools for each of the capabilities identified in question 2? What do we know about these patent pools?
Would the existing patent pools be sufficient to ensure that:

consumers continue to have access to inexpensive devices?
manufacturers operating in the budget segment are not snuffed out by patent litigation or do not pass on losses caused by patent litigation to their consumers?
the rights of patent holders are not infringed upon? If not, why?

Which of these patent pools could go into an India-based mobile device patent "pool of pools" formed possibly through government intervention and having a royalty level supportable by the domestic Indian consumer market for mobile devices?
What is the design and manufacturing flow of a finished Internet-enabled low-cost mobile phone sold in India?

2. Objective

The objective of the chapter is to exhaustively determine the number of patents that apply to an Internet-enabled mobile device that costs the equivalent of USD 100 or less in the Indian retail market. The set of patents is restricted to those that apply to technologies which are commonly found in such a device. This set of patents could be included in a patent pool for Indian manufacturers of mobile phones.

3. Object

[2. What patents pertain to capabilities commonly found in networked mobile devices sold in India for USD 100 or less?]

Eight mobile phones [Annexure 1 (PDF)] have been procured for identifying the technical standards implemented in them. These are phones manufactured in China and sold in the white or grey market in India either by Indian brands or by Chinese ones. The research object also includes the Indian patent database, documentation published by standard setting organisations, and the practices of Indian manufacturers of Internet-enabled mobile devices in the sub-USD-100 segment.

3.1. The phones were used to determine “capabilities commonly found in networked mobile devices sold in India for USD 100 or less” as described in research question 2. These capabilities were identified by (a) examining the physical components of the phone, (b) by running emulators which identified details about the hardware, (c) verifying the findings from (a) and (b) with the users' manual, packaging box, or any other documentation published by the manufacturer.

3.2. Criteria for Choosing the Mobile Phones

The handsets cost less than USD 100 (INR 6,000 approximately), connect to the Internet, and are sold in physical Indian markets.
Every handset has at least one feature that differentiates it from the rest of the set. For example, in-built support for multiple Indian languages; 50 kilowatt battery (as published on the carton and battery label); camera with CMOS sensor.
The universal set for the mobile phones of interest for this research can not be defined as the phones are sold in grey or black markets. Catalogues, online listings, company websites, and other documentation for this universal set are not available. Hence, it is not possible to definitively identify mobile phones that are 'representative' of the handsets of interest. Handsets that help one get a richer sense of the population of the sub-USD-100 mobile phone market in India have been chosen.

4. Rationale

Though India has not yet witnessed patent litigation of the same scale as developed countries, litigation over standard essential patents in India has already led to injunctions against nine homegrown and Chinese manufacturers^[1]. The mobile device landscape in India uncovered through this research will be applied to the development of policy recommendations that aim to ensure that consumers continue to have access to inexpensive devices, that manufacturers operating in the budget segment do not end up shutting shop due to patent litigation, and the rights of patent holders are not infringed upon.

5. Research Method

[1. Are there measurable indications of increasing patent filing by the mobile device industry in India?

2. What patents pertain to capabilities commonly found in networked mobile devices sold in India for USD 100 or less?]

Fifty Indian and non-Indian companies most likely to hold telecom-related patents in India were identified by CIS. [Annexure 4]. Two patent searchs firm were contracted the task of searching the database of the Indian Patent Office by the names of the fifty companies for patents granted and applied for.

5.1. Procedure for selecting law firms/ patent attorneys:

Ten law firms and patent search agencies from different parts of India were identified as potential contractors after preliminary meetings with several patent attorneys and representatives of law firms.
Price quotations were invited from the ten organisations after holding one or more meetings with each.
On the basis of the quotation, deliverable time, scope and nature of the results delivered, and quality assurance, the contract was awarded to one firm of patent attorneys (Hourglass Research, Mumbai) and one law firm. The firms offered the best price for a commensurate deliverable time and assured quality of results.

5.2. Patent Firm 1 (Hourglass Research) Search Strategy:

Step 1: A taxonomy that comprehensively covers different technologies implemented in an Internet-enabled mobile phone was drawn up [Annexure 5]. The taxonomy was split into categories (Level 1) and sub-categories (Level 2).

Step 2: The Derwent World Patents Index (DWPI) assigns one or more manual codes (MC) to each patent depending on the technology described by the patent. The patent firm matched manual codes pertaining to mobile technology with categories in the taxonomy. Thus, each manual code corresponded to one or more categories in the taxonomy.

Step 3: Subsequently, search strings [listed in Annexure 6] were used to find published applications as well as granted patents from the Thomson Innovation (TI) database. The search strings comprise permutations and combinations of the manual codes [Annexure 7], fifty assignees , keywords, and IPC classes and sub-classes. The search results were extracted on February 23, 2015. Hence, the patents granted or published till then have been included in the landscape. The start date is January 1, 2000 as the Thomson Innovation Database does not contain earlier records from the Indian Patent Office database.

Step 4: Then, manual codes for each patent in the results were extracted. Each patent was assigned a category corresponding to its manual codes. This automated categorisation was manually reviewed and validated by reading the claims, abstract, DWPI use, and DWPI novelty. In instances where the patent could not be categorised based on the information contained in the claims, abstract, DWPI use, and DWPI novelty, the detailed description associated with the patents (i.e., the column entitled "Description" in the dataset) was read.

Step 5: The TI database yields International Patent Documentation (INPADOC) families. In instances where one or more patents from the same family appeared in the search results, granted patents were chosen over non-granted ones as "representative" of the family.

Step 6: The results were deduplicated first on the basis of the publication number and then on the basis of the application number. In five instances, two or more different patents were assigned the same application number. This was resolved by manually reading the patent and determining the most relevant patent.

4,052 patents and 19,517 patent applications relevant to the mobile phone were found at the end of the patent landscaping exercise.

5.3. Schema for identified patents and patent applications: Name of Assignee -- Patent Number -- Application Number -- Status of application (Granted/ Published) -- Application Date -- Publication Date -- Grant Date -- Database Searched -- Title -- Abstract -- Category (Level 1) -- Sub-category (Level 2) -- Infrastructure/ User Equipment/ both -- Title (DWPI) -- Abstract (DWPI) -- Abstract DWPI Novelty -- Abstract DWPI Use -- Comments/ Remarks

5.4. List of IPC classes and sub-classes and DWPI Manual Codes excluded from the patent search: [Annexure 8], [Rejoinder to Annexure 8]

These classes, sub-classes and manual codes were excluded as they were very overarching for the research question. Class H04, for instance, pertains to "electric communication techniques". It is likely to comprise a comparatively large number of patents not pertaining to mobile device technology. Instead, certain sub-classes of H04 that are the most relevant to mobile device have been considered. As another example, the sub-classes of G01 pertain to measurements of physical quantities (length, area, thickness, et al). The number of patents pertaining to mobile technology in these sub-classes will be small compared with the number of patents in the sub-class.

5.5 Patent Search Firm 2

Patent Search Firm 2 used Questel and Questel Orbit databases to search for patents and patent applications filed in India from January 1, 2005 to January 1, 2015. The results delivered by this firm did not fulfill our quality standards. Hence, they were dropped from the research. We intended to compare the results of the two search firms to determine the difference.

5.6. Identifying telecom standards implemented in mobile phones:

[2. What patents pertain to capabilities commonly found in networked mobile devices sold in India for USD 100 or less?]

Using documentation available from standards-setting organisations and industry consortia, and from the nine handsets, 322 technical standards [Annexure 2] implemented in a networked mobile device have been identified by CIS. These technical standards support commonly found capabilities in a networked mobile handset. By dismantling the phones, their components were identified [Annexure 3]. The list of components and standards was used to determine the patent pools, standard-setting organisations and standard development organisations of interest for research questions 3 and 4 as well as for the literature survey.

6. Validation of Results

The results of the patent landscaping exercise turned in by the patent search firm were validated by performing the following steps:

Checking for duplicate application numbers via MySql
Checking for duplicate publication numbers via MySql

No duplicates were found.

7. Analysis of Results

[2. What patents pertain to capabilities commonly found in networked mobile devices sold in India for USD 100 or less?]

7.1. Data Analysis: Breakdown of 23,569 patents and patent applications

Number of patents and patent applications combined in the different Level 1 categories,

Number of patents and patent applications combined in Level 2 categories (i.e., sub-categories).

7.2. Visualisations: Graphical representations of the patent landscape

1. Number of patents in each Level 1 category
2. Number of published patent applications versus granted patents in each Level 1 category
3. Number of patents in each sub-category of “Communication”
4. Number of patents in each sub-category of “Operational Blocks”
5. Number of patents in each sub-category of “Sensors”
6. Number of patents in each sub-category of “Energy Storage”
7. Number of patents in each sub-category of “Sound, image, and video”
8. Number of patents in each sub-category of “Display”
9. Number of user equipment patents, infrastructure patents and infrastructure and user equipment patents.
10. Number of patents held by each of the fifty assignees
11. Number of patent filings by the fifty assignees from the year 2000 to the year 2014
12. Number of patents in each Level 1 category filed over the years (time intervals: 2000-2003, 2004-2007, 2008-2011, 2012-2014)
13. Number of patents filed annually from the year 2000 to 2014 for all Level 1 categories combined
14. Top 10 assignees in Communication
15. Top 10 assignees in Operational Blocks
16. Top 10 assignees in Software
17. Top 10 assignees in Sensors
18. Top 10 assignees in Sound, Image, and Video
19. Top 10 assignees in Display
20. Number of patents in each Level 1 category held by each assignee in the top 10. (The ten assignees with the most number of patents in the overall dataset of 23,569.)
21. Number of patents filed from the year 2000 to 2014 in each sub-category of Communication
22. Number of patents filed from the year 2000 to 2014 in each sub-category of Operational Blocks
23. Sub-categories (Level 2 categories) with the highest number of filings [Baseband; Bandwidth; Call and data management; Signalling, routing and switching]
24. Top 10 assignees in Baseband
25. Top 10 assignees in Bandwidth
26. Top 10 assignees in Call and data management
27. Top 10 assignees in Signalling, routing and switching

8. Confidential Research and Anonymised Interviews

[6. What is the design and manufacturing flow of a finished Internet-enabled low-cost mobile phone sold in India?]

CIS conducted and published anonymised interviews with semiconductor chip manufacturers in Taiwan in September 2014. A confidential research exercise was conducted with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and white-label assembly lines in China in 2014. The two research exercises have contributed to the mapping of the downstream flow of manufacturing a finished, Internet-enabled, low-cost mobile device.

9. Literature Survey

[3. What are the existing patent pools for each of the capabilities found in a low-cost networked mobile device? What do we know about these patent pools?

4. Would the existing patent pools be sufficient to ensure that consumers continue to have access to inexpensive devices, that manufacturers operating in the budget segment are not snuffed out by patent litigation (or pass on losses caused by patent litigation to their consumers), and the rights of patent holders are not infringed upon. If not, why?]

Research questions 3 and 4 will be answered via a comprehensive literature survey.

10. Prior Art

A list of 2,300 patents from different jurisdictions (US, Japan, India, Korea, Sweden, Taiwan, Europe, China, Finland, France, Norway, UK, Germany, Singapore) searched by keyword/ keystring was compiled in 2013 ^[2].

Clairvolex, a market research firm based in Gurgaon conducted a patent landscaping exercise of mobil technologies in India in 2010. The search was based on IPC classes: http://www.clairvolex.com/pdf/communication.pdf

11. Narrative:

The chapter for the book takes the form of a story of an Indian businessperson travelling to Shenzhen in China to procure a consignment of mobile phones for selling them in India. The businessperson puts together a configuration of hardware and software for the mobile phone and sets out to find the royalties he would need to pay for it.

Numerical data has been presented using visualisations.

12. Assumptions:

The chapter assumes a direct link between the patent regime and the availability of inexpensive Internet-enabled mobile devices, whereas the latter is affected by several other factors outside the scope of this research, for example, trademark infringement litigation.

13. Limitations:

The patent landscape only encompasses the patents and patent applications filed by 50 major brands in India. It does not take into account patents held by other vendors, universities, and educational institutions.
The patent landscaping exercise was conducted for patents granted and applications filed between January 1, 2000 and February 23, 2015 as earlier data for Indian patents was not available in the Thomson Reuters database. As the lifespan of a patent is 20 years, live patents granted between 1995 and 2000 in India are not present in the landscape.
IPC classes, sub-classes and DWPI manual codes listed in Annexure 8 were not included in the patent landscape as they were very overarching for the research question. Class H04, for instance, pertains to "electric communication techniques". It is likely to comprise a comparatively large number of patents not pertaining to mobile device technology. Instead, certain sub-classes of H04 that are the most relevant to mobile device have been considered. As another example, the sub-classes of G01 pertain to measurements of physical quantities (length, area, thickness, et al). The number of patents pertaining to mobile technology in these sub-classes will be small compared with the number of patents in the sub-class. Owing to the presence of a relatively large number of patents superfluous to the research, these classes were not included in the interest of time, effort, and monetary cost.

Edited, April 8, 2015: To add -- Procedure for selecting law firms/ patent attorneys for this task, Patent database searching by company name, List of companies

Edited April 27, 2015: To update -- Annexure 2, List of standards and specifications found in sub-USD-100 Internet-enabled mobile phones sold in India.

Edited, May 23, 2015: To remove "Scope: Software patents will not be considered" as software patents granted in India have been found.

Edited, July 25, 2015: To remove steps "Patent database searching by standard" and "patent database searching by keyword" as they would have increased the time and costs needed for the landscaping without adding significant value. Hence, removed the research question, "What degree of standards implemented in the mobile device technology sold within India compared with that in the US is currently covered by patents?"

Edited, November 7, 2015: To edit – Research question 1. Are there measurable indications of increasing patenting activity in the mobile device industry in India?

2. What patents are absolutely necessary to keep a networked mobile device which costs less than USD 100 in India running?

3. What are the existing patent pools for each of the standards identified and what do we know about them?

4. Question trifurcated.

5. Which of these patent pools could go into an India-based mobile device patent "pool of pools" formed possibly through government intervention and having a royalty level supportable by the domestic Indian mobile device market?

Research Objective: The set of patents is restricted to those that apply to technologies that are absolutely necessary for the functioning of such a device.

To add in “Research Object”: The research object was used to determine “ features commonly found in networked mobile devices sold in India that cost less than USD 100” as described in research question 2.

To add sections on Analysis of Results, Confidential Research and Anonymised Interviews, and Literature Survey.

Edited, November 17, 2015: To add section on Limitations.

Footnotes:

[1]. Compilation of Mobile Phone Patent Litigation Cases in India, Rohini Lakshané, March 15, 2015, http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/compilation-of-mobile-phone-patent-litigation-cases-in-india, Last accessed November 7, 2015.

[2]. Mobile Phone Patents: Prior Art Survey, Nehaa Chaudhari, October 23, 2013, http://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/mobile-phone-patents, Last accessed November 7, 2015.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/patent-landscaping-in-the-indian-mobile-device-market

Methodology: Access to Music through the Mobile

maggie — 2014-12-08T16:22:41Z

Like its predecessors the vinyl, the cassette tape, the CD, and the MP3 player, the mobile phone as the most recent musical carrier have been well documented to be a disruptive technology, one which has made earlier carrier technologies virtually obsolete. The mobile phone has transformed the music industry and its supporting infrastructure — dramatically altering the roles of various intermediaries and stakeholders who enable the creation, distribution, and consumption of musical content.

Context

For the first time in 13 years, the music business is growing again, with consumption of musical content at an all time high due to innovations which have provided more affordable and convenient platforms for accessing music than ever before. These include web-based and mobile-based applications which have arisen to compete with piracy through "free", "feels-like-free" and "fermium" business models.[1]

Given the pervasiveness of the mobile phone, especially in India where it is the only mode of access for over 50% of the population [2], these innovations along with expanding broadband and data services seems to be a mark of success in bringing access to music and other media content to those formerly priced out, and geographically excluded from the legal market.

However, Indian web and mobile-based applications such as Gaana and Saavn, and its U.S. counterparts like Spotify and Pandora have continuously operated at a loss, often sustained by venture capitalist funding or a larger corporate backing.[3] Although many online platforms, such as the recently shut down Flyte (funded by Flipkart) cite piracy as the official reason for its closure, industry insiders have allegedly noted exorbitant licensing fees demanded by rights holders as the case.[4]

Research Problems

1. It is uncertain whether legal access to affordable music through the mobile will remain.

As an access issue, this is problematic due to the potential disappearances of these platforms, which have with varying success provided an alternative to unauthorized file sharing while increasing the ease of consumers' access to a larger volume and variety of legal content. Some of these applications provide a "direct-to-fan" platform for musicians to upload their own music online without having to 'break in' to a relatively closed entertainment industry, particularly in the Indian market where the mass majority of music is dominated by the film industry. Access to increased volume and variety is also not a guarantee, particularly in light of some musicians' indignation over the intermediaries' profits from their content, and the little revenue received in return.

2. Numerous stakeholders are entering the technologically advancing, digital music industry resulting in uncertainty of optimal business models and increased complexity of revenue and royalty distribution.
Thus, given evolving business models due to the transitioning physical to digital music industry, no consensus has yet been found on which platforms or revenue models offer an optimal solution for access to, and production of music. The potential for monetization in all levels of the value chain - from production, to content aggregation, to content distribution, and consumption -- has resulted in an increase in the number of intermediaries, further complicating the ecosystem.

All stakeholders fulfill different roles in the industry while expressing the common challenge of 'monetization'.

Web and mobile based content distributors are attempting to find the right price points at which Indian consumers are willing to pay, particularly in a market whose billing model is largely based on mobile credits and cash-on-delivery since only 1% of the population have access to credit. [5] Globally, criticisms for streaming distributors like Spotify are highly publicized, not paying enough royalty to artists despite claims that 70% of their revenue is spent on content licensing.[6]

Content aggregators are attempting to monetize services such as music fingerprinting, meta-data tagging, and other analytics tracking to identify and capitalize on consumer behavior and consumption trends. Meanwhile, telecom companies and mobile phone manufacturers are attempting to provide integrated services and music bundle packages to increase the interoperability of these platforms for a more frictionless experience for consumers.

Content owners - vast majority being music labels -- are attempting to maintain their relevance in the industry through its powerful artist and repertoire marketing role, amidst criticisms that stakeholders like multi-channel networks and self-publishing content distributors (i.e. SoundCloud, Youtube, etc.) will deem it irrelevant. Many distributors globally note the vast ownership of content leading to the potential abuse of bargaining power, as exemplified by the Competition Commission of India's recent ruling that Super Cassette Industries' (or T-Series, who own 70% of Hindi film music) practiced unfair and discriminatory charging practices for a radio broadcasters due to their demand for minimum guarantees.[7]

The content producers -- lyricists, composers, performers, and more are struggling to monetize and finance the production of their music. Down the valuation stream, the contractual agreements between content owners and distributors affect the livelihoods of these artists. India's music industry is particularly unique in that the vast majority of content are film music, which means the common financier of music production are the film industry, rather than music labels or publishing houses. Additionally, given a one-time, work-for-hire agreement was commonplace in the Indian film industry during music production, a contractual agreement stipulating royalty division was slow to materialize.

3. Continued violation of law due to lack of legitimacy of Copyright Board, Copyright societies, and 2012 Copyright Amendment.

The entire music ecosystem is governed by the framework of copyright, which necessitates legal mechanisms to ensure proper regulation and balance between the protection of rights holders and access to content for consumers.

The 2012 Copyright Amendment attempted to address the imbalance of bargaining power through preventing the first author's transfer of right to royalty, amongst others. This amendment was also passed in response to alleged corruption and collusion between the content owners (music labels), various judiciaries, and the former copyright societies (Indian Performing Rights Societies ("IPRS") and the Indian Phonographic Publishing Limited ("PPL")), resulting in an absence of royalty payments to lyricists and composers for many years.[8]

Despite this, the Copyright Amendment have not been as effective in correcting the issues on the ground, and are still allegedly being circumvented via advanced royalties, backdated agreements, and waiver of performance royalty rights.[9] Other inefficiencies cited have been poor transparency of royalty payments, lack of publicly available analytics on web and mobile-based platforms, and untimely responses by the Copyright Board to conduct investigations into the allegations.

Amidst these allegations, some industry analysts also claim the Copyright framework itself needs to catch up with the technological potential that the internet, and these new services provide. This may be an alternative perspective to be explored.

*(Tentative) Research Questions and Methodology

Thus, given uncertainty of the sustainability of affordable, legal access; the increasing complexity of business models and royalty distribution, and the continued violation of Copyright law due to lack of legitimacy, the policy question is:
How can legal and institutional mechanisms ensure an enabling environment for access to, and production of music for all mobile phone users in India?

"Legal mechanisms" - Copyright Act, Copyright Board, licensing mechanisms
"Institutional mechanisms" - Copyright societies, music industry norms, corporate policies
"Access" - equitable, fair, easy access to quality and quantity of music
- Potential barriers to access (to music, through mobile):
- Political: Legal constraints (Goonda Act?), intermediaries prevent copying, licensing bodies
- Economic: Lack of availability of older repertoire, access to mobile device
- Social: Use or access of materials involving loss of privacy, lack of quality production
- Technological: TPMs, compatibility, broadband/data access, payment gateways, geographic barriers, lack of net neutrality

Access necessitates "production" - ability to create content with little entry barriers; balance right of artists to earn, and consumer access

Barriers to production and distribution:
Uncertainty of business models in age of digital music
Ineffectiveness of Copyright regulation: Copyright societies, Copyright board
Controversy surrounding Copyright Act
Lack of finance/income -- intermediaries taking share of pie ?? Inefficiencies in music industry?

"Mobile phone users in India" - smartphone users able to access web and mobile based platforms

How do the stakeholders in the Indian music industry work together to facilitate access to music via the mobile phone?

Who are the stakeholders of the music industry in India?
What are their roles and their objectives?
How have their roles changed given the digital transition of the music industry?

Method: Conduct a stakeholder analysis mapping the physical to digital transition. Secure information via literature review (academic and grey) and expert interviews secured via snowball sampling.

Content Creation

Lyricists/composers (film, non-film)
Performers (film, nom-film)
Film Producer
Sound Producer
Publisher
Self-production (Remix artists, DJs, independents)

Content Aggregation and Distribution
- Content Aggregation:

Music labels (International/film/indie)
Mobile aggregators (VAS companies)
Tech aggregators (back-end for digital platforms: meta-data tagging, analytics, etc.)

Content distribution (digital)

Online stores (e.g. iTunes)

Mobile/Web-based

Webcast/Radio (e.g. MumbaiOne Radio)
Digital Stores (e.g. Amazon, iTunes, eMusic, Google Play, Flyte, OKListen, etc.)
Interactive streaming (e.g. 8tracks, Gaana, Hungama, Raaga, Rdio, Spotify, etc.)
Bundled telco-music stores (formerly Nokia MixMusic)

Copyright Board
Copyright societies (e.g. IPRS (Indian Performing Rights Society), PPL (Phonographics Performance Limited, ISRA (Indian Singers Rights Association))
Associations (e.g. MCAI (Music Composers Association of India), SIMCA (South Indian Music Companies Association), IMI (Indian Music Industry - ass. of producers), etc.)

Financiers:
- Venture capitalists
- Brands/advertisers
- Corporate backing
- Multi-channel networks
  - Technical intermediaries
    - Telecom operators
    - Internet service providers
    - Data providers
    - Payment gateway providers

Mobile phone manufacturers

Consumers

Types of music listeners (Ovum research taxonomy)
- Active fans (lean forward/niche)
- Core enthusiasts (lean forward/mainstream)
- Indie followers (lean back/niche)
- Lean-back listeners (lean back/mainstream)
Class distinction / price sensitivity?

What are the current business models for web and mobile-based content distributors? How does this impact each stakeholder in the music industry?

What are the new business models of the digital music industry in India?
- How are the new intermediaries/stakeholders in the web/mobile targeted music industry impacting business models?
- Literature review (media, industry reports) and expert interviews

What is the revenue distribution in the music production value chain for the web/mobile-based platforms in India?
- Method: International comparison of new digital music business models worldwide:
- Online MOOC Course & lectures (Coursera - West Virginia University ; YouTube - Future of Music Coalition[11] )
- Literature review (academic, white, grey, media, industry repots, etc.)
- Method: Replicate FMC's study for Indian context: Music and How Money Flows[12]

Who are the consumers that access music via mobile/web-based platforms in India?

Is there a socio-cultural-economic dimension distinguishing those willing and able to pay? Who actually pays and how much?
- Method: Literature review, expert interviews, surveys??
- Are there different levels of musical engagement which translate to consumer behavior (active fans, core enthusiasts, indie follower, lean back listeners) and subsequent willingness to pay? What percentage of listeners fall in each category in India?
  - Method: Questionnaire to current users of web/mobile-based music distributors supplemented by expert interviews
  - What kind of economic good is digital music in India? Inferior, luxury, normal? Complementary, substitute? Public, merit, private, free?
    - Method: Literature review, theoretical economic analysis supplemented by user survey and expert interviews

Considering the stakeholders in the digital music industry, consumer behavior in India, how should music copyrights be regulated to provide optimal access of music through the mobile to consumers and fair renumeration to first authors?

What role do legal mechanisms currently play in the distribution of royalty revenue in the music industry (on the ground)?
- Method: Mapping of copyright processes and agreements (oral, contractual, or otherwise) between stakeholders in the music industry, noting specifically role of Copyright Board, and (former) Copyright societies; expert interviews
What role do codified laws (2012 Copyright Amendment, case law) stipulate should be the legal mechanisms to distribute royalty in the music industry?
- Method: Legal literature review, expert interviews
- How have the 2012 Copyright Amendment impacted the stakeholders in the music industry? Are the laws effectively enforced? Has the Copyright Amendment been designed/defined/articulated in an optimal way for all stakeholders? Why or why not?
- Method: Literature review
- How should copyright be organized? Who should distribute royalty revenues? What process?
  - Method: Consider stakeholder analysis, context of India music/film industry, consumer demand and price-sensitivity, and conduct cross-jurisdictional comparison
  - What industry norms should be set for a more transparent, efficient supply chain to ensure rights holders receive fair compensation?
    - Method: International comparison of industry norms for copyright organization and distribution

[1].Amba Kak, Fighting Free with Free - The Legal Music Market in India as a Response to the Digital Age (Centre for Internet and Society, to be published.)

[2].Avendus Capital, India’s Mobile Internet: The Revolution Has Begun: An Overview of How Mobile Internet Is Touching the Lives of Millions, Industry (Avendus Capital Private Limited, September 2013), http://www.avendus.com/Files/Fund%20Performance%20PDF/Avendus_Report-India’s_Mobile_Internet-2013.pdf.

[3].Amba Kak, Fighting Free with Free - The Legal Music Market in India as a Response to the Digital Age (Centre for Internet and Society, to be published.)

[4].Nikhil Pahwa, “Why Flipkart Shut Down Flyte Music,” News and Analysis of Digital Media in India, MediaNama, (May 29, 2013), http://www.medianama.com/2013/05/223-why-flipkart-shut-flyte-music/.

[5].Reserve Bank of India, as cited in IFPI, India: Nearing an all-time high http://www.ifpi.org/india.php

[6].James Duffett-Smith, Music Licensing Study: Notice and Request for Public Comment (United States Copyright Office 2014).

[7].Ashok Chawla, M.L. Tayal, and S.L. Bunker, HT Media Limited v. Super Cassettes Industries Limited (Competition Commission of India 2014).

[8].Prashant Reddy, “Did the Big Music Companies on IPRS & PPL Collude to Deny Lyricists and Composers Crores of Rupees in ‘ringtone Royalties’ – An Investigation,” http://spicyip.com/2011/02/did-big-music-companies-on-iprs-ppl.html, SpicyIP, (February 14, 2011)

[9].Anonymous, “Ghost Post: The myriad ways in which the Copyright Amendment Act, 2012 is being circumvented” http://spicyip.com/2014/01/ghost-post-the-myriad-ways-in-which-the-copyright-amendment-act-2012-is-being-circumvented.html, SpicyIP, (January 18, 2014)

[10].https://www.coursera.org/course/gpsmusic

[11]. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL471E012D03E9BA03

[12]. https://futureofmusic.org/blog/2013/06/18/music-and-how-money-flows

Click to download the PDF

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/methodology-access-to-music-through-mobile

Meeting with IP Stakeholders

Admin — 2018-01-01T15:23:18Z

Anubha Sinha attended a DIPP meeting with stakeholders on December 7, 2017 in New Delhi. The meeting was organized by the Government of India.

Anubha made submissions pertaining to CIS' study on lack of compliance and enforcement in respect of filing statements of working of patents:

Large percentage (~ 20%) of patents' Form 27s were found to be missing (dataset of approx 5000 patents);
3% of the patents did not mention status on working of patents;
Almost none of the available Form 27s provided any useful information - patentees did not bother filling out several parts of the Form.

In addition, I sent a brief on the issue drawn from Prof. Contreras' and Rohini's paper, and Rohini's older email to the IPO describing issues with the website.

See the Meeting Circular here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/meeting-with-ip-stakeholders-1

Meet the Newly Born Tulu Wikipedia, the 23rd in a South Asian Language!

subha — 2016-08-30T02:14:13Z

The Tulu language Wikipedia became the latest entrant in the family of 294 world-language Wikipedia projects after the project went live from Wikimedia Incubator earlier this month.

The post was published in Global Voices on August 28, 2016.

The project waited as long as eight years in the Incubator before becoming the 23rd South Asian language Wikipedia. Available at https://tcy.wikipedia.org, the Tulu Wiki space has a total of 1,285 articles contributed by 198 editors, about 5-10 of which are active with over five edits every month.

The announcement about the project going live was made by Katherine Maher, Executive Director of Wikimedia Foundation during the WikiConference India.

Wikimedia Incubator is a sister project of Wikipedia and before any new language Wikipedia is created, an Incubator project is created and grown by volunteer editors. Once the project gains momentum with more editors developing more content more often, the project goes live as a new Wikipedia project.

The Tulu language is spoken by about three to five million people in the Indian states of Karnataka and Kerala, and there is a sizeable diaspora living in US and the Gulf countries.

Eight years back in 2008, Tulu Wikipedia was created in Incubator with just a handful of editors. But apart from a few sporadic edits every so often, there was little impetus to take the project forward.

A community in a real sense is one that engages in discussion, consensus and collaboration. This never existed for Tulu Wikipedia as individual editors were working in isolation from each other.

There was therefore a need for them to meet and form a strategic plan to grow the community and the Incubator by brining in more active contributors.

In 2014, the need to connect the Tulu Wikipedia editors and foster an interactive editorial group was discussed and a meetup was organized in Mangalore by the Centre for Internet and Society—Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) program, a catalytic program funded by the Wikimedia Foundation to support and grow Indian language Wikipedias and Wikimedia projects in the Indian subcontinent.

As an offshoot of that meeting, more community meetups started to happen. A few workshops were organized in Mangalore to provide hands-on training to participants and the city's St. Aloysius College opened its door to include Wikipedia editing as part of its syllabus.

A Wikipedia Education Program was promptly organized for the undergraduate students in this college where students started editing Wikipedia as a classroom assignment and the faculty was involved both in providing training and evaluating the articles.

Vishwanatha Badikana, assistant professor of the Kannada language department at St. Aloysius College, became an active Tulu Wikipedia editor himself and led outreach activities at the institution. His students have enriched the Tulu Wikipedia with articles across a broad range of topics.

However, what has been achieved so far is still only the tip of the iceberg. The community is still fairly small and has to grow beyond one supporting institution. The larger Tulu language community also has to take ownership and become stewards in growing Tulu Wikipedia.

Despite its long, rich linguistic heritage, Tulu is still struggling in terms of achieving wider usage in written form, especially in its native script. The lack of promotion is also quite evident as the Karnataka Tulu Sahitya Academy, an official body set up by the Karnataka government uses Kannada and English for its official portal.

The biggest challenge of all is the lack of Unicode support. Unicode is a global standard for scripts, and the Tigalari script that is used to write in Tulu is not encoded in Unicode. At the moment, all the articles in the Tulu Wikipedia are written in the Kannada script as most of the speakers are based in the state of Karnataka, and speak Kannada as a second language.

The only possibility of using Tigaliri script is tied to standardizing the script on Unicode, releasing a freely licensed typeface so that it can be bundled as a web font to display the script in the case of any mobile or desktop user not having the font installed on their device.Finally the script for existing content must be converted from Kannada to Tigaliri.

There is a series of eight how-to video tutorials that have been created to help new and existing editors to learn more about Wikipedia policies and guidelines, style and the editing process.

“Many students have contributed by creating these tutorials,” says Dr. Badikana.

The current set of editors are doing their best to spread the word about the project while safeguarding the core values of Wikipedia.

In an interview to the media portal Daijiworld, Bharathesha Alasandemajalu, an active editor based in Oman said, “Anyone can write or edit articles on Wikipedia Tulu, but it should not be plagiarised [..] Photos should be one's own or uploaded with valid permission from the owner. This will help the future generation to know more about the language and act as a source of information on Tulu language and culture.”

Dr. Badikana moreover shared in an interview with this author that he is hopeful of seeing more Tulu speakers contributing to Tulu Wikipedia, as he feels that growing language content online, combined with work in conventional classrooms, is the best approach to preserving the language.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/global-voices-august-28-2016-subhashish-panigrahi-meet-the-newly-born-tulu-wikipedia-the-23-in-south-asian-language

Meet Telugu Wikipedian Surampudi Meena Gayathri – the first South Indian Wikiwoman completing 100Wikidays Challenge

ting — 2017-01-23T11:53:32Z

In December 2016, Ms. Meena Gayathri and her fellow Telugu Wikipedians celebrated the Telugu Wikipedia Day and her accomplishment in the 100Wikidays Challenge – a challenge that requires Wikipedians to create one new article per day for one hundred days in a row. When asked about how it feels to take up the challenge and to become the first South Indian Wikiwoman who completed it, she replied “Like exericing, you would think it is hard to do it every day but if you try, it is really satisfying.” Ms. Meena Gayathri has been one of the few active female Telugu Wikipedians since 2014. Her contribution and passion towards her language and culture have transcended into what she called a “knowledge revolution.”

Ms. Meena Gayathri is an active Telugu Wikipedian who started her 100Wikidays challenge at the end of August 2016. Her motivation came from the support of her family, the satisfaction of creating articles, and her determination to be an inspiration for her fellow Wikipedians. Ms. Meena Gayathri had chosen topics from her interests, including freedom fighters from Andhra Pradesh, wherein articles were present on English Wikipedia but not in Telugu. “I think those are really basic things that Telugu Wikipedia should have but somehow there isn’t” she said. Meena Gayathri reached out to the Telugu community for assistance with MediaWiki’s content translation tools. She also had the support of CIS A2K for books and reference resources. Drawing inspiration from current events and Indian culture, Meena Gayathri also wrote articles on Hindu Goddesses on each the ten days of Dussehra in coordination with the worshiping of a different Goddess on each day of the festival.

The creation of articles on Hindu Goddesses also mark Meena Gayathri’s effort and passion in bridging the Wikipedia gender gap in content coverage. Half way through her challenge, in coordination with the Wikipedia Asian Month in November 2016, she started writing on biographies of Asian women, including female politicians in Sri Lanka and Pakistan. “It’s very interesting” she said, while mentioning her experience in researching and writing about these female figures, “(how) these women, under hard situations… are still securing their positions in the government and in the politics… I want to let people see how they gain and sustain their power as women.” Additionally, Meena Gayathri pioneered a new challenge called “100Women Wikidays Challenge” in which participants would write a woman-related article each day in an endeavor to balance the content gender gap on Wikipedia.

“People said to me that I am the first South India female Wikipedian to complete the 100WikiDays, and the first in the whole world to take up the 100Women Wikidays.”

Her attempt to complete the 100Women Wikidays challenge, however, stopped a few days ago due to the lack of internet connection and time. In fact, this is not the first time that she has faced such difficulty during the completion of her challenges. She described how during a family tour outside of the city, she used to bring a laptop and ensure stable internet connection just so she can wake up as early as possible each day to finish her daily articles for the 100Wikidays. She agrees that women usually seem to be occupied by different responsibilities and activities – family, work, and socializing. She was glad that her family and community have given her full support, materially and mentally, to complete the challenge. When asked about tips on sparing some time for Wikipedia every day, she answered, “The first thing I do in a day… (is to) plan each and every moment of what I need to do in my day. And I maintain a task list in my mind. I will say, just remind yourself twice or thrice a day, remind yourself what you really want to do and you can make some time for Wiki(pedia) too.”

At the end of our conversation, we asked Gayathri to share some advice and encouragement to those who want to take up or are completing the 100Wikidays (or the 100Women Wikidays) Challenge. She answered without hesitation, “I will say, don’t feel afraid, that work you want to do is not that tough after all… It will be satisfying. You are contributing to the knowledge revolution... I think for Telugu, for the online knowledge in our linguistic background, this is going to be history. I will tell them ‘We’re creating a history.’”

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/meet-telugu-wikipedian-surampudi-meena-gayathri-2013-the-first-south-indian-wikiwoman-completing-100wikidays-challenge

MediaWiki Training 2017

Tito Dutta and Ananth Subray — 2017-06-07T08:43:57Z

MediaWiki Training 2017 conducted in Bangalore

The third iteration of the MediaWiki Training was conducted on 24-26 February at Bangalore, India (the first and second iterations of MWT was conducted in 2015 and 2016). 16 participants from 9 Indic Wikimedia communities attended the workshop. The following graph shows the participation from different Indic Wikimedia communities.

Malayalam Wikimedian User:Viswaprabha attended the workshop as a resource person. On behalf of the Centre for Internet and Society, User:Titodutta and User:Ananth_subray were the resource persons.

== Sessions ==

On the first day, the following topics were discussed

=== First day: technical audit ===

Introduction to MediaWiki Training: The first session of the day started with introducing the aims of objectives of MediaWiki Training 2017.

Introduction to MediaWiki software and platform: Following this User:Titodutta and User:Viswaprabha discused the MediaWiki software, different extensions, LocalSettings.php and some other important configurations related to MediaWiki.

Wikipedia technical audit: Wikipedia technical audit was the central theme of the day, and the phrase “Wikipedia technical audit” was coined by Rahul Desmukh of IIT Bombay. He suggested that once in a year a Wikimedia community should do its technical audit, when the community would solve issues like deadend pages, orphan pages, uncategorized pages, script errors, infobox errors, reference errors, and other errors and issues related to a Wikimedia project.

On the first day of the MWT workshop we discussed these issues and errors and how to solve these.

== Second day ==

On the second day of third iteration of MWT, we began with problems faced in different languages with respect to Templates and Imfoboxes. And continued with teaching how to create the basic info boxes. Each participant were thought how to add two digits in a single template and creation of LUA templates. Later we had thought them how to create a basic template by adding a label and data, and even localizing of some templates were also done.

After this use of Wikidata was thought and INfoboxes using wikidata.

Post lunch some of the tools and their uses and applications were thought Copyvio, Duplication detector, Google books citation, Citation generator and Hay's tool directory

== Third day ==

On the third day of MWT 2017, the first session started with a session where User:Viswaprabha discussed Wikimedia Labs Quarry (https://quarry.wmflabs.org/)

The major points of the session were:

Introduction to Quarry.
Importance of Quarry
Coding simple quarry.

User:Viswaprabha also showed how to integrate Google spreadsheet with Quarry. He showed a couple of examples where he had the most of it using the tricks.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/mediawiki-training-2017