Centre for Internet and Society

Guidelines for Examination of Computer Related Inventions: Mapping the Stakeholders' Response

nehaa — 2015-01-05T17:01:50Z

The procedure and tests surrounding software patenting in India have remained ambiguous since the Parliament introduced the term “per se” through the Patent (Amendment) Act, 2002. In 2013, the Indian Patent Office released Draft Guidelines for the Examination of Computer Related Inventions, in an effort to clarify some of the ambiguity. Through this post, CIS intern, Shashank Singh, analyses the various responses by the stakeholders to these Guidelines and highlights the various issues put forth in the responses.

I. Introduction

In June, 2013 the Office of Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trademarks ('IPO'), released the Draft Guidelines for Examination of Computer Related Inventions ('Guidelines'). The aim of the Guidelines was to provide some much needed clarity around patentability of Computer Related Inventions ('CRI'). The Guidelines discuss the procedure to be adopted by the examiners while examining CRI patent applications. In response to the Guidelines, several stakeholders submitted their comments to either accept, reject or modify the interpretation provided by the IPO. Most of the comments circled around the phraseology of Section 3(k), Patents Act, 1970 ('Act'). In its current form, Section 3(k) reads as "a mathematical or business method or a computer programme per se or algorithms", and comes under Chapter III of the Act which lists inventions that are not patentable. Simply put, this means that software cannot be patented in India, unless it is embedded/combined in with some hardware. While this is the most widely accepted interpretation of this Section 3(k), there have been contradictory interpretations as well.

In this note, I shall look at the various ambiguities surrounding patent application for CRIs. The note has been divided into five parts. Part II briefly reiterates the legislative history behind Section 3(k) and CRI patenting. Part III would briefly summarize the various parts of the Guidelines where the IPO has given their interpretation and opinion on the various issues surrounding CRI patenting. Part IV would then map the position of the stakeholders on each ambiguous point. Lastly, Part V would give the conclusion.

II. Legislative History

Under the Patent Act, 1970, prior to the 2002 Amendment, there was no specific provision under which software could be patented. Nonetheless, there was no explicit embargo on software patenting either. For an invention to be patentable, under Section 2(1) (j) of the Act, which defines an invention, general criteria of novelty, non-obviousness and usefulness must be applied. Software is generally in the form of a mathematical formula or algorithm, both of which are not patentable under the Act as they do not produce anything tangible. However, if combined or embedded in a machine or a computer, the resultant product can be patented as it would pass the aforementioned criteria.

The Parliament, in 1999, sought to amend the Act to bring it in conformity with the changing technological landscape. Consequently, the Patent (Second Amendment) Bill, 1999 was introduced in the Parliament which was then referred to a Joint Parliamentary Committee ('JPC'). The ensuing Bill proposed Section 3(k) in its current phraseology. It reasoned that:

" In the new proposed clause (k) the words ''per se" have been inserted. This change has been proposed because sometimes the computer programme may include certain other things, ancillary thereto or developed thereon. The intention here is not to reject them for grant of patent if they are inventions. However, the computer programmes as such are not intended to be granted patent. This amendment has been proposed to clarify the purpose. "

The Bill was then enacted as the Patent (Amendment) Act, 2002 and reads in its current form as:

Section 3(k) - "a mathematical or business method or a computer programme per se or algorithm"

This created some ambiguity with respect to the interpretation of the term "per se". It was interpreted to mean that software cannot be patented unless it is combined with some hardware. This combination would then have to comply with all the tests of patentability under the Act.

In December, 2004 the Patent (Amendment) Ordinance, 2004 ('Ordinance') was enacted which amended Section 3(k) to divide it into two parts, namely Section 3(k) and Section 3(ka).

"(k) a computer programme per se other than its technical application to industry or a combination with hardware;

(ka) a mathematical method or a business method or algorithms; ".

In February, 2005 the Ordinance was introduced in the Parliament as the Patent (Amendment) Bill, 2005.This included the amendment to Section 3(k) as under the Ordinance. In the Objects and Reasons it clarified that the intention behind the amendment was to " modify and clarify the provisions relating to patenting of software related inventions when they have technical application to industry or in combination with hardware ". However, the final amending Act did not divide Section 3(k) as proposed by the Ordinance. In the press note, by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry it was noted that:

"It is proposed to omit the clarification relating to patenting of software related inventions introduced by the Ordinance as Section 3(k) and 3 (ka). The clarification was objected to on the ground that this may give rise to monopoly of multinationals."

Later, in the same year the IPO release a Manual of Patent Office Practice and Procedure, 2005. Here, it noted that "a computer readable storage medium having a program recorded thereon…irrespective of the medium of its storage are not patentable". This did nothing to clarify the ambiguity that existed.

Similarly, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Commerce, 88^th Report on the Patent and Trademark System in India (2008) noted the uncertainty surrounding the term 'per se' and said that there was a need to clarify the same. It did not do anything in furtherance of pointing this out.

The 2011 Manual of Patent Office and Procedure, 2011 tried to elaborately deal with the ambiguity. Nonetheless, substantively it did not change the uncertainty. It stated that:

"If the claimed subject matter in a patent application is only a computer programme, it is considered as a computer programme per se and hence not patentable. Claims directed at computer programme products' are computer programmes per se stored in a computer readable medium and as such are not allowable. Even if the claims, inter alia, contain a subject matter which is not a computer programme, it is examined whether such subject matter is sufficiently disclosed in the specification and forms an essential part of the invention."

III. Draft Guidelines for Examination of Computer Related Inventions, 2013

The Draft Guidelines were released on June 28, 2013, following which stakeholders were invited to give comments.

Terms/ Definitions used while dealing with CRIs

At the outset, the IPO put a caveat to say that the Guidelines do not constitute 'rule making'. Consequently, in case of a conflict between the Guidelines and the Act, the Act shall prevail. After the Introduction and Background, in Part I and Part II respectively, the Guidelines looked at the various definitions/terms that correspond to CRI patent claims in Part III. In all, there were 21 such definitions/terms that were sought to be clarified. These definitions can be branched into three categories.

Category I- Where the definition/term was borrowed from some other Indian stature.
Category II- Where the definition/term was construed according to the plain dictionary meaning. Category III- Where the Guidelines tried to give their interpretation to the term/definition.

Under Category I, there were seven definitions whose meaning was derived from some other stature. The meaning of Computer Network, Computer System, Data, Information and Function were derived from Information Technology Act, 2000 ('IT Act'). The definition of Computer Programme was taken from Copyright Act, 1957. Lastly, the definition of Computer was taken from both Copyright Act and IT Act.

Under Category II, the Guidelines underscored five definitions whose meaning was to be borrowed from the Oxford Dictionary. These were algorithm, software, per se, firm ware and hardware. Importantly, it was noted that these definitions have not been defined anywhere in Indian legislations. Lastly, under Category III the Guidelines tried to interpret certain terms according to their understanding. These terms included, Embedded Systems, Technical Effects, Technical Advancement, Mathematical Methods, Business Methods etc.

Categorization of CRI claims

In Part IV, the Guidelines tried to broadly group the various CRI patent applications under four heads. These categorizations tried to give an insight into what the patent examiners look for while rejecting a patent application.

Method/process:

Without defining what a method or process would entail, the Guidelines stated that any claim carrying a preamble with "method/process for..." shall not be patentable. It clarified that claims relating to mathematical methods, business methods, computer programme per se, algorithm or mental act are cannot be patented as they are prime illustrations of claims under this category. Further, the Guidelines gave specific examples of each of the aforementioned claims.

Apparatus/system

The second category consisted of claims whose preamble stated that the patent application was for an "apparatus/system". Under this, the patent application must not only comply with the standard tests of patentability- novelty, inventive step and industrial applicability, but also define the inventive constructional or hardware feature of the CRI. However, in contradictory statements, the Guidelines try to narrow down the prerequisites for a claim under this category, only to state that such claims cannot be patented.

Computer readable medium

While stating this as a category, the Guidelines do not elaborate on what this exactly means and what types of claims would be rejected being under this category.

Computer program product

This category includes computer programs that are expressed on a computer readable medium (CD, DVD, Signal etc.). Further, infusing ambiguity to the debate, the Guidelines failed to differentiate between Computer Readable Medium and Computer Program Product.

Examination Procedure used by IPO

The examination procedure for CRI patent application in the Guidelines is similar to other patent applications which look at novelty, inventive step and industrial applicability. However, claims relating to determination of specific subject matter under the excluded categories (Method/Process, Computer Readable Medium, Apparatus/system, and Computer Program Product) require specific examination skills from the examiner.

Under the excluded category itself, Method/Process requires subjective judgement by the examiner as to whether such a claim qualifies to be classified under this category or not. For investigating the inventive step involved in the 'method/process', the technical advancement over existing knowledge in the technological field has to be analyzed. Any patent claim from a non-technological field shall not be considered.

The Guidelines then tried to clarify the controversial Section 3(k) which eliminates the patenting of computer programmes per se. While previously stating that the definition of the term 'per se' as borrowed from the Oxford dictionary meant 'by itself', the Guidelines stated that computer programme loaded on a general purpose computer or related device cannot be patented. Nonetheless, while filing patent application for a novel hardware, with a loaded computer programme, the likelihood patenting the combination cannot be ruled out. Further, the stated hardware must be something more than a general purpose machine. Essentially, a patent for a novel computer programme combined with a novel hardware, which must be more than a general purpose machine, may be considered for patenting. It then gave several examples which were followed by flowcharts to further clarify ambiguities surrounding CRI patentability. Interestingly, all these examples and flowcharts only listed the inventions that are not patentable.

IV. Response by Stakeholders

Many and various comments were received from 36 stakeholders that including lawyers, civil society members, law firms, students, global and national trade bodies and industry representatives.

Our compilation (and the first level of analysis) of the Stakeholders' Responses is available here.

While all the stakeholders' applauded the much needed transparency in the IPO, substantively they differed considerably on various issues and highlighted some inconsistencies. In this part, I shall map the responses of the various stakeholders'. While doing so, I shall also try and find specific patterns to the responses corresponding to the following segments:

1. Civil Society

2. Law Firm/Advocates ('law Firms')

3. Industry/ Industry Representatives/Global Trade Body (Industry)

4. Students

These segments have been created on the assumption that each of the aforementioned segment would lobby for similar kind of policy.

Interpretation of Section 3(k)

One of the major points of deviation between the stakeholders was regarding the interpretation of Section 3(k) which encapsulates the term "computer programme per se".

The industry responded by critiquing the current CRI patenting regime in India as being "restrictive" ( FICCI , NASSCOM, US India Business Council and Bosch ). While some industry representatives sought clarifications due to uncertain phraseology, there was no industry representative that favored restricted interpretation to exclude software patenting altogether. While opposing the Guidelines, they sought assistance from the legislative history behind introduction of Section 3(k). It was pointed out that the term 'per se' was included to raise the threshold of patentability to something higher than the previous patentability standard, but it did not explicitly exclude patent protection for software.

The general perception of the stakeholders, keeping in mind the current Guidelines, was that for patenting software it had to be combined with some hardware. This combination would then be scrutinized against the triple test of novelty, inventive step and industrial application.

While the Guidelines noted that the hardware involved must not be general purpose hardware and that the chances of software patentability would increase significantly if novelty resides in the hardware; however, most of the industry and global trade bodies disagreed with this interpretation. They argued that if software in combination of hardware technically advances the existing technology, then such an innovation must be patentable, despite being combined with a general purpose machine (Bosch). Another explanation supporting expanded interpretation was that much of the technological innovation is accomplished through software development as compared to hardware innovation and novel software can achieve technical effect without the hardware developments ( BSA- The Software Alliance ). Consequently, software development that allows a general purpose machine to perform tasks that were once performed by a special machine must be incentivized. Some stakeholders interpreted the Guidelines to reason that hardware must be completely disregarded while examining patentability of software (Majumdar & Co. ).

Most of the responses from the civil society argued for a restricted interpretation of Section 3(k) ( Centre for Internet & Society). They concurred with the interpretation provided by the IPO to exclude software patentability. Most of the stakeholders responded seeking further clarification on the subject (Software Freedom Law Centre , K&S Partners and Xellect IP Solutions).

However, within each segments itself there was difference of opinion on the interpretation of Section 3(k). For instance, out of the five civil society members, four wanted to restrictive interpretation while one of them favoured expansive interpretation to include software patenting. Similarly, 13 law firms sought further clarification on the subject matter, while seven argued for expansive interpretation and one of them argued for restricted interpretation. The most consistent response was from the industry that clearly favoured software patenting and called the Guidelines "restrictive". Seven out of the nine industry representatives supported expansive interpretation and the other two sought further clarifications on the subject.

Section 5.4.6- Hardware

The interpretation of Section 3(k) until the release of the Guidelines was that software in combination with some hardware could be considered for patenting. However, the Guidelines increased the threshold stating that this hardware must be "something more than a general purpose machine". A stakeholder pointed out that increasing this threshold would go against the legislative intent as the requirement of a novel hardware has not been mentioned anywhere in the Act ( Anand & Anand ).

The industry's perspective on this matter was largely uniform. They pointed out the large technological field that would be eliminated from the scope of patentability if the interpretation provided by the Guidelines is adopted ( Bosch). Also, the investigation of novelty in the hardware would disincentives inventors in the field of CRIs ( Kan & Krishme ). Most of the stakeholders, across segments, sought more clarification on the role of hardware under Section 3(k) (Majumdar & Co. Centre for Internet & Society).

Comparative Analysis

Much of the criticism surrounding CRI patenting policy in India is based on the comparative inconsistency with similar laws in other jurisdictions. Comparative analysis on the subject has only been provided by the stakeholders that support software patentability. They point out that most countries like US, UK, Japan and the European Patent Convention allow patenting of software, and India must also do the same in order to comply with its international obligations under the TRIPs Agreement. Paradoxically, stakeholders who supported the current practice chose not to comparatively analyze CRI policy of other jurisdictions. While most of the stakeholders simply jumped to analyze comparative jurisprudence on the subject, only one of them gave a reasonable explanation for such a comparison ( LKS). It was noted that the Supreme Court of India and the Intellectual Property Appellate Board regularly borrow from foreign decisions to either accept or deny patents. Therefore, while formulating any policy on the matter, the position in other jurisdictions must be considered.

It was reasoned that the term 'per se' used in the Act, is similar to the European Patent Convention and UK Patent Act, 1977 where the term 'as such' has been used. Therefore, while juxtaposing both the terms, the interpretation of 'per se' must be similar to 'as such'. Consequently, software patenting must be allowed subject to the tests evolved by the courts. Similarly, the term 'as such' has been used by several Asian countries including China, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan. In these countries, software in concert with a specific hardware that resolves a technical problem thereby achieving a technical result can be patented ( Krishna and Saurastri Associates ).

Likewise, while comparing the jurisprudence of US, the landmark case Diamond vs. Diehr, which marked the beginning of software patenting was cited ( Subhojeet Ghosh and US India Business Council ). Several others argued that India must align their laws with global standards ( Bosch, Phillips Intellectual Property and Standards , Sun Smart IP Services , United Overseas Patent Firm).

Business Method

The Guidelines tried to narrow down the definition of 'Business Method' to clarify that such claims cannot be patented. It was urged that the Guidelines reconsider such a blanket embargo ( Legasis Partners- Advocates and Solicitors, Anand & Anand ). While judging patentability, a patent must not be rejected simply because it mentions business method or business method related terminology. What must be examined is whether the inventive step resides in the technical or non-technical part of the claim ( Legasis Partners- Advocates and Solicitors). A distinction must be made differentiating as to what software implementing business method and a software relating to the technical aspect of the transaction ( Anand & Anand ). While the former can be rejected, the latter must be accepted subject to the triple test of patenting.

It was pointed out that reevaluating a business method claim apart from a method involving financial transaction; monopoly claim over trade and new business strategies; monopoly claim over new types of carrying out business and method of increasing revenue; must be rejected (Law Offices of Mohan Associates , Remfry and Sagar, FICCI ). The more overarching opinion of the stakeholders was there is no objection to the exclusion of business method patents, but what constitutes business methods need more clarity (D. Moses Jeyakaran, Law Firm of Naren Thappeta , Japan Intellectual Property Association ).

Critique of Examples and Flowcharts

The Guidelines provided for several examples and flowcharts to foster a better understanding of the subject matter. However, a notable feature of each of these was that they only gave examples of what claims would be rejected. This was sufficiently pointed out by most of the stakeholders who sought more positive examples (Bosch, BSA- The Software Alliance , K&S Partners , FICCI , Xellect IP Solutions, Japan Intellectual Property Association , In-House Intellectual Property Professional Forum, NASSCOM , Obhan & Associates , Remfry & Sagar, Tata Consultancy Services ). It was pointed out that the examples have not sufficiently elaborated on their relation with Section 3(k) ( FICCI ), and some of them are "weak, obscure and incorrect" ( Software Freedom Law Centre). These examples also fail to elaborate on the tests that have previously been applied by the Patent Office ( LKS). Overall, the general perception was that, the examples were confusing and greater clarity along with positive examples was needed ( LKS, Anand & Anand ).

Interestingly, out of the 25 stakeholders' who commented on the illustrations, 16 sought positive examples. Further, most of the positive examples were sought by industry representatives and law firms who supported software patenting.

V. Conclusion

It has been over a year since IPO released the CRI Guidelines. On release, it invited suggestions in order to revise the Guidelines, but the revised version has still not been released by the IPO. The Guidelines were authored from a patent examiner's perspective; however, while doing so it obscured the matter further. It was argued that in totality the application of the Guidelines would now make the patentability of software stricter. It was also pointed out that the Guidelines have not taken into account the legislative history and the specific rejection of the Ordinance in the 2005 Amendment.

The responses received by IPO gave conflicting opinion on the same issue. In general, it can be concluded that the industry and law firms were in favour of allowing software patenting. They sought removal of the hardware requirement for software patentability. Most of the stakeholder's who favoured software patenting also undertook a comparative study of jurisdictions like US, UK, EU and Japan to point out the difference in the software patenting policy. Further, they also wanted the Guidelines to give positive examples wherein CRIs patenting has previously been allowed.

Admittedly, the Guidelines have no legal standing and much like the Patent Manual, they serve merely to guide the patent applicants and provide transparency patent examination. Overall, the Guidelines failed to explain the previous inconsistencies surrounding the subject matter. In conclusion the Guidelines mention that it would periodically release and update the Guidelines incorporating the stakeholder's comments. Considering the diverse set of opinions received by the IPO, it now needs to be seen which suggestions are accepted until the next round of comments.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/guidelines-for-examination-of-computer-related-inventions

Guidelines for Examination of Computer Related Inventions in abeyance

sinha — 2015-12-23T10:06:53Z

The CRI Guidelines were heavily criticised for their failure to address the ambiguities created by Section 3(k) and for expanding the scope of software patent eligibile subject-matter, inter alia. Following several representations and submissions by interested stakeholders, the Controller General has moved the Guidelines into abeyance, until discussions with stakeholders are complete and contentious issues are resolved, and is a welcome step.

CIS has consistently made submissions to the Indian Patent Office on the issue of software patenting( 2015, 2013, 2010). The latest submission was made in September 2015, in response to the Guidelines for Examination of Computer Related Inventions, 2015(“CRI Guidelines/ Guidelines”) in which we highlighted several concerns and presented solutions, and also proposed a definition of "computer programme per se".

In view of the representations made to the Patent Office, on 14th December 2015, the Controller General issued an order to keep the Guidelines in abeyance. Till the issues therein are resolved, the existing provisions on S. 3(k) of chapter 08.03.05.10 of the Manual of Patent Practice and Procedure will continue to be applicable.

The primary fault with the Guidelines lay in the fact that, legally, its scope of was in excess of section 3(k) of the Indian Patent's Act, 1970 (parent statute). The Controller General's order acknowledging the representations and submissions made in response to the Guidelines, and consequently keeping the Guidelines in abeyance is a welcome step.

You may access the order here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/guidelines-for-examination-of-computer-related-inventions-in-abeyance

Guidelines for Examination of Computer Related Inventions (CRIs)

praskrishna — 2016-02-05T14:01:32Z

Anubha Sinha attended this meeting organized by the Office of The Controller General, Patents, Designs & Trade Marks in Mumbai on January 12, 2016

Download the Meeting Notice

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/guidelines-for-examination-of-computer-related-inventions-cris

Guest Blog: Retd. Col. Ashwin Baindur on Strategy, Wikimedia Strategy Salon, Vijayawada

manasarao — 2017-10-24T11:52:49Z

User:AshLin aka Col Ashwin Baindur (retd) gave a Plenary Speech(in absentia) on Strategy at the Wikimedia Movement Strategy Salon, held in Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh on 27 August 2017. It is reproduced here with permission:

Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests and my dear Wikimedia friends and colleagues,

I am deeply honoured to be asked to say the opening words for the Movement Strategy Salon being held today at Vijayawada. The problems of ill health prevent me from coming to be with you as I most dearly wish, but I do hope my few words and thoughts will make do instead. Let me introduce myself. I happen to be a retired army officer but I see myself as a citizen of the world, as a Wikipedian whose cherished dream is to make Jimmy Wales dream come true.

“Imagine a world where the sum of all knowledge is available to all mankind!”

The occasion for this conclave or salon is timely. The twenty first century paradigm of Open Culture, of sharing and collective intelligence are well established. Crowdsourcing, Wikipedia, Creative Commons, Project Gutenberg, the Internet Archive and so many other important global resources are proof.

Education has received a huge fillip by the vastly increased amounts of data and knowledge on the Internet. Open sourcing has made its mark in the software side of the business world. Just as has open access publishing in Academia. Society as a whole has gained by all these manifestations of open culture.

And today, we are gathered here to begin thinking on the directions for the future of the Wikimedia movement in India.

What does this mean in our case? India is a country of many languages, dialects, people, communities, religions, tribes. Along with this are the collective efforts of 1.3 billion people to make a secular, democratic, economically strong nation. The ability to share learning, understanding, experiences are key to this process. And for this, collaboration is a vital necessity.

As of now the Wikimedia effort in India consists of a potpourri of projects, encyclopedia, quote, text repository and the use of Wikimedia Commons as a media repository. We have to grow this into a large, useful and versatile resource in each of our Indic languages.

The Wikimedians, a small band of volunteers to date, must take along the entire society of India so that we have betterment as a nation by first creating and using these resources. And today’s conclave with kindred souls from society, academia, industry.. is a beginning in this regard.

Now we are here to think what directions this Movement must take. I am envious that I can’t be part of this process with you. However, as a retired military person, let me say a few words on strategy and how it is decided.

All planning occurs at three levels. The most basic of activities to be done are referred to as tactics. Tactics are governed by operational planning which comprises of a worked out plan of how to achieve the overall plan or the goal.

The deciding of this overall plan or goal is referred to as strategy.

To be more specific..

“a high level plan to achieve one or more goals under conditions of uncertainty..”

And when we do this for a long period of the future, it is more appropriately termed as ‘grand strategy".

For this we have to ponder - What is our aim? What are our strengths? What are our challenges? What are our opportunities? What are our resources and what are our constraints? What path should we take to achieve our aim?

These are to be reduced into a few directions which are broad based, actionable and full of potential. A good strategy must open huge opportunities, new fields, new possibilities.

The is not easy to do or quick to make. It will take more than one session, more than one day, week or even a month to get our strategy right.

Most important of all is that we learn to think in the new paradigm of sharing and open culture. We should leave behind the mindset of scarcity, possessiveness and personal benefit and embrace the values of the common good, creation of opportunities and innovation.

On our success in making a good strategy, depends the fate of millions of our children and youth who will either benefit from our decisions or lose opportunities if we are not wise and generous. We have to believe in the future. We have to want to make that future great for our nation.

I wish you the very best in this endeavour. I repeat, that I am envious that I can't be with you today. I pray that the things we decide from today onward in this process of grand strategy for the Wikimedia movement in the decades to come.

At the very end, I would like to thank the Wikimedia movement in India, CIS-India, the organisers of this salon and of course, my young friend Krishna Chaitanya Velaga for this opportunity.

Jai Hind!

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/guest-blog-retd-col-ashwin-baindur-on-strategy-wikimedia-strategy-salon-vijayawada

Guerrilla GLAMː An alternate way of doing GLAM in indie-way

subha — 2015-12-16T03:09:47Z

I have been working on a concept called the Guerrilla GLAM. Here is a very quick summary about the concept that was published in the GLAM-wiki newsletter for November.

GLAM stands for cultural institutions like Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums. It is a globally acclaimed free knowledge movement for opening up cultural data using various free software platforms as a tool. GLAM activities include collaboration with cultural institutions, data mining, meta data and other documentation of institutional collections, digitization of published works, records and artifacts, and publishing the collected information in both human and machine readable forms with open standards. Building partnership with GLAM institutions is a great way of funneling the cultural content acquisition and bringing open access to such valuable data. But it is not that easy given the complications each country have in terms of formal agreement, organizational framework, and dissemination of information. "Guerrilla GLAM" techniques are based on the learning curve of institutional partnership building for large scale GLAM projects and leveraging personal contacts in small scale GLAM projects. It bring in several frugal strategies for cutting cost implication and operating in flexible modes. Guerrilla GLAM's range of work aims to accommodate people of different core expertise and it targets small to large orgaizations.

Guerrilla GLAM appeared first as a public presentation during Wikimania which I presented this year. It later interested many GLAM practitioners of New Zealand who organized a webinar which provided a great platform to add many interesting ideas to my existing set of ideas. Guerrilla GLAM is still a budding concept that aims for being implemented by many cultural enthusiasts especially those who would like to document much about the artifacts, digitize old text from archives and manuscripts, and create meta data for institutional collections. Guerrilla GLAM operates with zero or with some informal institutional partnership with the institution and carried on the shoulders of the Wikimedians. The Wikimedians seek out for support from local communities, leverage the permissible access to institutional property and to some extent the personal relations with the institutions keeping the legal restrictions in mind, and do their best to acquire as much data as possible. Often times, near to zero cost Guerrilla GLAM projects with detailed planning with right kind of people on-board could yield more or less the same like any conventional GLAM project.

Click to read the original published on Wikimedia Blog on November 25, 2015.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/guerrilla-glam-an-alternate-way-of-doing-glam-in-indie-way

Grounds for Compulsory Patent Licensing in United States, Canada, China, and India

maggie — 2014-07-29T08:45:25Z

The research paper seeks to answer questions about the grounds of compulsory licensing in international treaties with specific examples from America and Asia. The grounds for granting compulsory licenses, jurisdictional comparison of compulsory licensing, etc., are examined.

Holding ownership to a patented invention means one has certain exclusive rights: a) the right to decide who may use the invention during the time of protection; b) the right to give licenses to other parties to use the invention on mutually agreed terms; and, c) the right to sell and transfer ownership of the patent to someone else[1]. Once this patent expires, the invention would enter the public domain to be shared freely[2].

However, given certain conditions, a compulsory license can be granted, in which “authorization [is] given by national authority to a person without or against the consent of the titleholder, for the exploitation of a subject matter protected by a patent or other intellectual property rights” [3].

Compulsory licensing has been most contentiously applied for patented pharmaceutical companies who are often looking to recoup research and development costs. Proponents of this instrument are now also growing amongst advocates for climate change mitigation technologies [4]. The Pervasive Technologies: Access to Knowledge in the Marketplace project is broadly assessing access to knowledge through sub-100 dollar devices. The accessibility of these critical technologies, and subsequent access to knowledge, information, and culture through these devices may be implicated by this policy lever[5]

Thus, this paper seeks to answer the following questions:

What are the grounds for compulsory licensing set in international treaties?
How does Canada, United States (i.e. North America), India, and China (i.e. Asia) provide for compulsory licensing within its national laws?

This will be done through first providing an overview of the relevant international treaties to understand the compulsory licensing framework which signatory nations must follow. Then, utilizing Correa (1999)'s study as a foundation, an analysis of the text within the four aforementioned's codified laws will be assessed to understand all the possible grounds compulsory licensing can be provided. This paper will conclude by summarizing any significant distinctions across the four jurisdictions.

Compulsory Patent Licensing in International Law and Regional Trade Agreements
Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property (1883) [6]
Article 5(2) of the Paris Convention provides each country with the right to "grant compulsory licenses to prevent abuses which might result form the exercise of exclusive rights conferred by the patent… " United States, Canada, China, and India are four of the 175 contracting parties to this convention [7]. This can only be done after 4 years of applying for the patent, or 3 years from the date in which the patent was granted. This means, a sufficient amount of time must have elapsed to allow the rights holder to exploit the invention.

North American Free Trade Agreement (1994)[8]
Article 1704 in NAFTA provides that "appropriate measures" can be taken to control abusive or anticompetitive practices. The United States and Canada have utilized this ground of anti-competition to grant numerous compulsory licenses.

Article 1709 notes that there must not be a discrimination of technology – patents may only be revoked when the grant has not remedied lack of exploitation, and that the use of the patent adheres to certain criteria.

In 1993, Canada repealed the compulsory licensing regulations from its Patent Law to comply with the international TRIPS and NAFTA treaties.

Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (1994) [9]
All members of the World Trade Organization is provided the right to use compulsory licenses via Article 31 Other Use Without Authorization of the Right Holder within the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) agreement. This Article stipulates 12 procedural provisions: compulsory licensing should be granted on 'individual merits'[10], must have shown prior effort to obtain authorization under reasonable commercial terms [11], must be non-exclusive[12], adequate renumeration must be provided[13], and the license must be terminated as soon as the circumstances for which it was granted cease to exist[14].

Suggested, but not obligatory grounds for which compulsory licensing could be granted under the TRIPs agreement are a) emergency and extreme urgency, b) anticompetitive practices, c) public non-commercial use, and the d) use of dependent patents[15].

Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health (2001)
The Doha Declaration is a clarification of the earlier TRIPS agreement in response to some countries' public health concerns due to obstacles to accessing patented medicines.[16]

Paragraph 4 of the Doha Declaration expressly allows Members to take measures to protect public health, while paragraph 5b states that "each Member has the right to grant compulsory licenses and the freedom to determine the grounds upon which such licenses are granted". Freedom of each country to define the terms of their intellectual property rights is also further reiterated.

Grounds for granting compulsory licenses
Correa (1999) in his paper Intellectual Property Rights and the Use of Compulsory License: Options for Developing Countries outlines eight common grounds which provided the framework for this comparative analysis between the jurisdictions of the United States, Canada, India, and China. Through analyzing the codified law on compulsory licensing, a few other grounds were added to the list.

Refusal to deal
In principle, the patent owner has an exclusive right to determine whether or not to issue a license to a third party. However, if under reasonable terms, one still refuses to issue a license, national courts may interpret this as an abuse of patent rights, resulting in lack of availability of the product and commercial development. In the United States, this is often raised as an anticompetitive issue.

Non-working and inadequate supply
The "working obligation" was initially understood as the industrial use of an invention, which according to Article 31 of the TRIPs Agreement required working 'predominantly' for local markets. However, many countries have defined 'working' to include commercial use of the invention, in which importation of a product would suffice[17].

Public interest
The public interest needs to be balanced with individuals' rights, and it is the responsibility of the courts or administration in each respective country to determine this. Thus, what actually constitutes as "public interest" varies depending on time and jurisdiction. For example, countries with limited industrial development could consider a compulsory patent to develop its national industries as for public interest [18]. Accessibility of a product at the lowest price have been argued to be in public interest, but some courts have ruled this to be invalid[19]

Anticompetitive practices
A patent is essentially a temporary monopoly meant to provide an economic reward for the inventor's work, as well as additional incentive to continue producing[20]. However, excessive monopolization through unlawful or unfair practices, such as when a patent is overly broad, acquiring and accumulating patent portfolios, and subsequent patent trolling are some acts that be considered anticompetitive patent practices[21]. Compulsory licenses have also been granted through this ground under anti-monopoly, antitrust, and competition laws.

Governmental use
Each country's government decides what is to be considered as governmental use. Occasionally synonymous to government use has also been public, non-commercial use, or as suggested by the TRIPs agreement, for the purposes of national emergency or urgency. This is assuming the government is acting on behalf of public interest; given its lack of an international standardized definition, this ground can be utilized and interpreted in other ways.

Facilitate use of dependent patents
When a new invention (dependent invention) cannot be developed without infringing on the license of an existing patented invention, (principle invention) a compulsory licensing can be granted to facilitate innovation. This ensures the patents of principle inventions would not block technical progress. The TRIPs agreement expressly allows this, provided reasonable compensation is articulated. In some jurisdictions, cross-licensing, (which involves a licensing agreement between two parties to exploit each other's intellectual property[22]) can be negotiated to resolve this issue.

Compulsory licenses for medicines
Numerous countries have issued licenses for increased accessibility to food and medicine. Prior to the Doha Round, TRIPs prohibited this, as Article 27 states "national laws cannot discriminate in exercise of patent rights on the basis of field of technology". However, the Doha Declaration addressed this, allowing pharmaceuticals to have increased accessibility (via pricing, production, and importation) for the sake of public health.

Exclusive Grant Back or Coercive Package Licensing
A grant back can be agreed upon when there is an expectation of an improvement on the licensed technology through increased superiority or method [23]. This allows the licensee to commercialize an improved product without having to file for another patent[24]. Exclusive grant back provides the licensor the exclusive right to use or sublicense improvements, while licensee retains non-exclusive right to practice the improvements.[25] Grant-backs, particularly exclusive ones are sometimes deemed as anticompetitive.

A package license, otherwise known as patent pools is used when the licensing of more than one patent is necessary to commercialize an invention [26] Coercive package licensing can occur when the licensing of other patents within the package is forceful and unnecessary. The defining and interpretation of 'coercion' ultimately depends on each country's respective authorities.

Hindrance from Importation of Abroad[27]
This ground may fall under non-working, but is unique in that it notes a state's ability to grant compulsory license on behalf of a foreign-owned patent. Yang (2012) cites that this as one of the most controversial aspects of compulsory patent licensing, as countries may feel undermined when another state can grant compulsory licenses that are against their own interests[28].

Jurisdictional comparison of Compulsory Licensing
The following table was developed as an exercise to review compulsory licensing within the jurisdictions of the United States, Canada, India, and China. Utilizing Correa (1999)'s findings as a skeletal framework, the four aforementioned countries' codified patent laws were used to determine the grounds for compulsory licensing. The main compairson was done through analyzing the specific text within the laws of the four jurisdiction – one approach to treaty and law interpretation[29] However, for those countries that were lacking general provisions on compulsory licensing (i.e. United States, and eventually Canada in 1993[30]), there was a need to expand to a more comprehensive approach and look through other codified laws beyond patents and intellectual property, as well as through case law to see if the mentioned grounds have been used to provide for compulsory licenses[31].

Grounds		Countries	Law
Refusal to deal and/or abuses of patentees' exclusive rights		U.S	n/a in codified law…refusal to deal is an essential element of intellectual property rights…but can lead to anti-competition in which Antitrust laws can be used
		Canada	Patent Law - Abuse of Rights 65.2(d): "if by reason of refusal of patentee to grant* a license or licenses on reasonable terms…*
		India	Patent Act 1970 S.4(d) *"Refusal to deal"* includes any agreement which restricts, or is likely to restrict, by any method the persons or classes of persons to whom goods are sold or from whom goods are bought Patent Act, 1970 S. 84.7(a) " If by reason of refusal…ii) demand for the patented article has not been met to an adequate extent or on reasonable terms; or iii) a market for the patented article manufactured in India is not being supplied or developed; or iv) the establishment or development of commercial activities in India is not prejudiced Patent Act 1970 S.84 (6) " …Controller shall take into account, - i) nature of invention, the time which has elapsed since the sealing of the patent and the measures already taken by the patentee or any licensee to make full use of the invention; iv) ..whether applicant has made efforts to obtain a license from the patentee on reasonable terms conditions, and such efforts have not been successful within a reasonable period *period not ordinarily exceeding a period of six months* as the Controller may deem fit
		China	Patent Law of the People's Republic of China - Article 48 (1): " When it has been 3 years since the date the patent right is granted, and four years since the date the patent application is submitted, the patentee, without legitimate reasons, fails to have the patent exploited or fully exploited"
Non-working and inadequate supply		U.S.	n/a
		Canada	Patent Act 1935: s.65 a): "… is capable of being worked within Canada but is not being worked within Canada on a commercial scale, and no satisfactory reason can be given for that non-working…" REPEALED in 1993 due to NAFTA and TRIPS
		India	Patents Act, 1970 S. 84 (1): " At any time after expiration of 3 years from the date of the grant of a patent, any person interested may make an application… b)…not available to the public at a reasonably affordable price, or c) that the patented invention is not available to the public at a reasonably affordable price Patent Act 1970 S.84(2): "…reasonable requirements of the public.. not satisfied or that the patented invention is not worked in the territory of India, Patent Act, 1970 S. 84.7(a) "If by reason of refusal…ii) demand for the patented article has not been met to an adequate extent or on reasonable terms; or iii) a market for the patented article manufactured in India is not being supplied or developed; or iv) the establishment or development of commercial activities in India is not prejudiced Patent Act, 1970 S. 84.7(d): " If the patented invention is not being worked in the territory of India on a commercial scale to an adequate extent, or is not being so worked to the fullest extent that is reasonably practicable
		China	Measures for Compulsory licensing of Patent Implementation (2012) - Ch 2 Art. 5: "If without good reason not implemented or fully implemented, their licensing patent within 3 years from the date of grant of patent right..and 4 years from the date of filing patent"
Public interest:		U.S.	"...no general provision allowing authorities to override patents in the larger public interest” [32] Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 - allow government to exercise "march in" rights with regard to government funded research results that universities might otherwise patent But US has granted compulsory licenses when felt public interest was at stake (Atomic Energy Act and Clean Air Act 1970, Federal Non-Nuclear Energy Research and Development Act 1973)
Canada	Patent Law - Abuse of Rights 65.2(d): "if by reason of refusal of patentee to grant a license or licenses on reasonable terms… in public interest that license/licenses should be granted" Patent Act S. 39. (3) License under patent relating to food: " In the case of any patent…of food…shall grant to any person applying…Commissioner shall have regard to the desirability of making the food available to the public at the lowest possible price consistent with giving to the inventor due reward for the research leading to the invention" REPEALED in 1993 due to NAFTA and TRIPS
India	Patent Act 1970, S. 84 (2)…not available to the public at a reasonably affordable price Patent Act 1970 S. 84 (6) " …Controller shall take into account, ii) the ability of the applicant to work the invention to the public advantage Patent Act, 1970 - S. 92 Special provision for compulsory licenses on notifications by Central Government-(1): " If Central Government is satisfied… circumstances of national emergency or in circumstances of extreme urgency, or in case of public non commercial use...
China	Patent Law - Article 49: " Where a national emergency or any extraordinary state of affairs occurs, or public interests so require…" Measures for Compulsory Licensing of Patent Implementation - Article 6: If emergency or irregular event of the state…or for purposes of public interest
Anti-competitive practices		U.S.	Antitrust & Trade Law: Sherman Act 15 U.S. C.S. 2 - Monopolizing trade a felony; penalty: " Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize…any part of trade or commerce among several States, or with foreign nations…deemed guilty of a felony, and conviction.."
		Canada	Competition Act (S. 32 RSC 1985): " …where use has been made of exclusive rights and privileges conferred by one or more patents for invention…(a) limit unduly the facilities for transporting, producing, manufacturing, supplying…may be a subject of trade or commerce, (b) restrain or injure, unduly, trade or commerce…(c) prevent, limit, or lessen, unduly, the manufacture or production…or unreasonably enhance the price thereof, or (d) prevent or lessen, unduly, competition in…
India	India Patent Law Chapter 90 (1.ix) Terms and Conditions of compulsory licenses… granted to remedy a practice determined after judicial or administrative process to be anticompetitive…
China	Measures for Compulsory Licensing of Patent Implementation, 2012 - Article 11: " …that actions of patent holder in exercising patent right…deemed to be monopolistic actions" Patent Law of the People's Republic of China - Article 48 (2): " …patentee's exercise of the patent right is in accordance with law, confirmed as monopoly and its negative impact on competition needs to be eliminated or reduced"
Governmental use		United States	28 United States Code 1498: " …when used or manufactured by or for the United States without license of the owner…remedy shall be..Claims for recovery of his reasonable and entire compensation for such use and manufacture…" ie. Government does not have to seek license or negotiate for use, and the only appeal for patent owner is compensation
		Canada	Under the 1993 and 1994 amendments to the Patent Act of 1985, section 19.1: "the Commissioner may, on application by the Government of Canada or the government of a province, authorize the use of a patented invention by that government ."
		India	Patent Act, 1970 - S. 100 Power of Central Government to use inventions for purposes of Government (1): "…at any time…the Central Government and any person authorized in writing… may use the invention for the purposes of Government in accordance with provisions of this chapter" Patent Act, 1970 S. 100 Power of Central Government to use inventions for purposes of Government (2): " Where an invention has, before priority date of relevant claim, been duly recorded in a document, or tested or tried, by or on behalf of the Government or Government undertaking… any use of the invention by the Central Government or any person authorized in writing by it for the purposes of Government may be made free of any royalty or other renumeration to the patentee " Patent Act, 1970 S. 100 Power of Central Government to use inventions for purposes of Government (6): " The right to make, use, exercise, and vend an invention for the purposes of Government under sub-section (1) shall include the right to sell on noncommercial basis, and person c laiming through..as if Central Government or authorized were the patentee of the invention
China	Patent Law of PRC Art. 14: "If an invention patent of a State-owned enterprise or institution is of great significance to national or public interests, upon approval by State Council.. Patent Law PRC Article 49: " Where a national emergency or any extraordinary state of affairs occurs…patent administration department under the State council may grant a compulsory license for exploitation of an inanition patent or utility model patent" Patent Law PRC Article 14: “ If an invention patent of a State-owned enterprise or institution is o f great significance to national or public interests, upon approval by the State Council, the relevant competent department under the State Council ...may decide to have the patent widely applied within an approved scope and allow the designated units to exploit the patent, and the said units shall pay royalties to the patentee in accordance with the regulations of the State.
Facilitate use of dependent patents		United States	N/A - U.S. Does has not formally codified a general provision for Compulsory licensing of Dependent Patents [33]
		Canada	N/A
		India	Patent Act 1970 - Section 88 Power of Controller in Granting Compulsory licenses (3): …if Controller satisfied that the applicant cannot efficiently or satisfactorily work the license granted to him under those patents without infringing the other patents held by the patentee, and if those patents involve important technical advancement of considerable economic significance …may direct grant of a license…
		China	Patent Law - Ch 6 Art 51: " If an invention/utility model…represents major technological advancement of remarkable economic significance, compared with an earlier invention or utility model for which the patent right has already been obtained, and exploitation of former relies on exploitation of latter…may grant it a compulsory license to exploit..."
Compulsory licenses for medicines		United States	N/A but has threatened Bayer for compulsory licensing of Ciproflaxin medicine who subsequently dropped their prices drastically [34]
		Canada	Bill C-9 Amendment to Food and Drugs Act, 2004: "…pharmaceutical products intended for export in accordance with that WTO General Council decision…to comply with…sold on domestic market" Patent Act (4) License under patent relating to medicine - " ..intended or capable of being used for the preparation of production of medicine…Commissioner shall grant.. REPEALED in 1993 due to NAFTA and TRIPS
India	Patent Act 1970 Section 92.A Compulsory license for export of patent pharmaceutical products in certain exceptional circumstances: " …shall be available for manufacture and export of patented pharmaceutical products [35] to any country having insufficient or no manufacturing capacity in the pharmaceutical sector for the concerned product to address public health problems…" Patent Act, 1970 Section 83.(d): "General principles applicable to working of patented inventions… do not impede protection of public health and nutrition…
China	Patent Law of PRC: Article 50: " For the benefit of public health…grant compulsory license for manufacture of the drug, for which a patent right has been obtained, and for its export to the countries or regions that conform to the provisions…" Measures for Compulsory Licensing of Patent Implementation, 2012 - Ch 2 Art 7: " For purposes of public health…able to implement petition for compulsory licensing…for manufacture of patented medicines..and export of, to following countries/regions: 1) The most underdeveloped countries/regions; 2) Developed/developing members of the WTO
Exclusive grant-back and Coercive package licensing		U.S.	Legal in the past – granted in Transparent Wrap Machine Corp v Stokes & Smith Co. but discouraged... interpreted by Rule of Reason doctrine which is an interpretation of Sherman Antitrust (Anti-competition) Act[36] Now Department Of Justice from 2007 has said must be non-exclusive under its Antitrust laws [37]
		Canada	N/A
		India	Patent Act, 1970 Section 84 (7.c): …Reasonable requirements of the public shall be deemed not to have been satisfied [38] - c) if the patentee imposes a condition upon the grant of license under the patent to provide exclusive grant back, prevention to challenges to validity of patent, or coercive package licensing
		China	N/A
Hindered by importation from abroad		U.S.	N/A
		Canada	N/A
		India	Patent Act, 1970 Section 84 (7.e): " if the working of the patented invention in the territory of India on a commercial scale is being prevented or hindered by the importation from abroad of the patented article by…i) patentee..ii) persons purchasing…iii) other persons not taking proceedings for infringement
China	N/A

Summary of Cross-Jurisdictional Comparison
As mentioned previously, this comparison necessitated an expansion into codified law outside of compulsory licensing and patent law into case law, since the United States had never written a general provision for compulsory licensing, and Canada had repealed theirs in 1993 upon the signing of the NAFTA and TRIPS agreement. For Canada, compulsory licenses (CLs) continued to be granted following the repeal through the Foods and Drugs Act, as well as the Competition Act. Despite United States' lack of general provisions, Knowledge Ecology International claims it is the world's leader in the use of CLs, yet hypocritical to developing countries' requests for affordable patented pharmaceuticals.[39]

In general, India and China both have very extensive compulsory licensing laws. China's State Intellectual Property Office even developed additional Measures to account for the execution of compulsory licensing. Despite comprehensive CL provisions, India has had only one compulsory license ever granted in the case of Natco Pharma Ltd v. Bayer Corporation, for the domestic production of cancer-drug Nexavar. [40] China has yet to grant any compulsory license, but the new Measures may signify an increasing willingness to do so, or even to be used as a bargaining tool. However, given its goal of developing domestic intellectual property (i.e. China's 5-year plan), it is unlikely that China will grant compulsory licenses in the masses.[41]

In regards to the specific grounds themselves, some grounds noted particular differences per country.

Under U.S. Intellectual Property Law, refusal to deal is actually is considered a right, thus does not provide for compulsory licensing; depending on the degree however, it could lead to anti-competition[42]. According to the Paris Convention, one can only request consideration for a CLs 3 years from the granting of a patent, or 4 years from application, allowing said time for provision of dealing. However, India seems to have a more stringent period of not exceeding a period of six months, while China noted specifically not 'without legitimate reasons'.

The non-working and inadequate supply was again not present in U.S. Law, yet Canada did include it in its former compulsory licensing provision prior to repeal. Canada had defined 'working' specifically referring to a commercial scale when compulsory licensing was in effect. India's 'working' means being available at a reasonably affordable price, and supplied or developed, through the establishment of commercial activities, worked to the fullest extent that is fully practicable, while China mentioned non-working 'if without good reason, it is not implemented or fully implemented'.

The United States does not have any provision providing explicitly for public interest. However, under the Bayh-Dole Act, government-funding for research during the economic crisis in the 1970s was granted as long as the inventors agreed to allow petition for 'march-in rights', in which the government or a third party “shall have the right...to require the contractor...to grant a nonexclusive, partially exclusive, or exclusive license” (35 U.S. Code S203(a)) if it meets one of four requirements - one being to “...alleviate health and safety needs which are not reasonably satisfied...” (35 U.S. Code Section 203). Canada's public interest clause had existed, but was repealed. India now states that CLs can be granted to make available to the public “at a reasonably affordable price, to public advantage, and for public non-commercial use”. In China, public interest is provided in conditions of 'national emergency or extraordinary state of affairs, for the purpose of public interest'.

The United States does however strongly uphold and value competition, and have granted CLs to remedy anticompetitive practices under its Antitrust laws, prohibiting any 'attempt to monopolize any part of trade or commerce'. China also uses the language of 'monopolistic actions' and allows compulsory licensing if its “negative impact on competition needs to be eliminated or reduced.” Canada's Competition Act allows for compulsory licensing if one 'limits unduly, the facilities for transporting, producing, manufacturing... restrain or injure unduly, trade or commercial etc..' .preventing fair competition. India also notes the remedying of anticompetitive acts in its patent laws.

Governmental use in the United States have been granted for use by the Department of Defense and as mentioned previously for the Bayh-Dole Act. However, unlike the other countries of focus, there is no way to appeal a CL for the purposes of government-use. The only way to remedy this as a patent owner is compensation. In Canada, the Commissioner may on application by the Government of Canada or province authorize a CL. Indian patent law also allows CLs for the purposes of the Government, with the explicit possibility of being made free of any royalty or renumeration. It also expressly notes within S103 that one can petition to the Government if this occurs. The Chinese Patent Law notes governmental use through the language of 'great significance to national or public interests', and 'national emergency or extraordinary state of affairs. The possibility of appeal is also expressly noted in Article 58.

Neither United States or Canada have formally codified any mention of compulsory licensing for the use of dependent patents, though it does exist in the TRIPs agreement they both comply to. In India patent law, CLs is granted through this ground “only if it involves important technical advancement of considerable economic significance, and... only if it cannot be accomplished without infringing other patents.” In China, the law states that if an “invention/utility model represents major technological advancement...compared with earlier invention or utility model...and the exploitation of former relies on exploitation of the latter...”, a compulsory license may be granted.

Compulsory licensing for medicine in the United States again have never been codified, but have been used to encourage Bayer to reduce their prices under the possibility of being issued compulsory liceninsg. Home to many of the pharmaceutical industries who own patents to medicines, the United States has been called hypocritical due to its common lack of providing affordable pharmaceuticals. Canada allows for CLs under the Food and Drugs Act which points to the World Trade Organization guidelines. Prior to the repeal of its compulsory licensing act, Canada also had specific provisions relating to medicines, and was actually the first country to authorize the compulsory licensing of an AIDS drug for Rwanda for export.[43] In India, the only compulsory license that has ever been granted was for cancer drug Nexavar. In its compulsory licensing provision, it states that CLs are “available for manufacture and export of patented pharmaceutical products...to any country having insufficient or no manufacturing” abilities. Similar to the TRIPs agreement, it also states that none of the principles should impede the protection of public health and nutrition. China's patent laws state that CLs can be used for the benefit of public health. The Measures for Implementation specifies more specifically which countries and regions are allowed, which includes WTO members, or the 'underdeveloped' nations.

Only in the Indian Patent Law does it explicitly allow for CL in the event of exclusive grant backs due to anti-competition and/or not being reasonable to the public. On the contrary, the United States actually had allowed exclusive grant back in the Transparent Wrap Machine Corp v Stokes & Smith Co. case[44]. However, the FTC now strongly recommends against it as it is considered anticompetitive when a grant-back is exclusive[45]. Canada and China does not seem to have this condition in their laws.

Similarly, only in the Indian patent law does coercive package licensing provide for compulsory licensing. This clause may have implications on standard-essential patent pools when attempting to determine which patents are indeed 'essential', and if they comply with fair, reasonable, and non discriminatory regulations[46].

Indian Patent Law also expressly allows for compulsory licensing on the ground that a product is hindered by importation from abroad. It must be proven the lack of accessibility is soley due to the process of it being imported, perhaps affected by natural disasters, socioeconomic reasons, political instability, sanctions, or more – ultimately affecting the cost and availability of this product. [47]

Conclusion and Further Reflections on Compulsory Licensing
Ultimately, there seems to be no correlation between the detail and scope of compulsory licensing (and other codified) law, and the number of compulsory licenses granted. However, it must be noted that the Eastern countries of focus in this review have had much less time developing its intellectual property landscape. In addition, the comprehensiveness of India and China's patent laws also reflect the incorporation of valuable lessons learned from poor implementation of other countries.

The prevalence of broadly defined patents, patent trolling, and the increasing need to navigate patent thickets all act as barriers to innovation and production to a commercial scale in which these technologies can actually be disseminated. The Pervasive Technologies project looks ultimately at bridging the digital divide through providing access to low-cost technology, and subsequently access to information, culture, and knowledge.

Compulsory licenses can be used to decrease the cost burden of production, and reduce barriers to innovation, ultimately providing greater accessibility to these tools for all of society. The Centre for Internet and Society has proposed and continues to advocate the establishment of patent pools for low-access devices through the use of compulsory licenses to achieve this goal[48].

[1] WIPO. What Is Intellectual Property. World Intellectual Property Organization, 2012. Print. 5

[2] WIPO, 6

[3] Correa, Carlos M. “Intellectual Property Rights and the.” Trade Related Agenda Development and Equity (1999): 3

[4] Contreras, Jorge L., and Charles R. McManis. “Compulsory Licensing of Intellectual Property: A Viable Policy Lever for Promoting Access to Critical Technologies?” TRIPS and Developing Countries – Towards a New World Order? (Gustavo Ghidini, Rudolph J.R. Peritz & Marco Ricolfi, eds., 2014 (Edward Elgar)) (2014): 112 Print.

[5] Abraham, Sunil. Letter for Establishment of Patent Pool for Low-Cost Access Devices through Compulsory Licenses. 27 June 2013. Accessed: http://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/letter-for-establishment-of-patent-pool-for-low-cost-access-devices

[6] The Paris Convention is an intellectual property treaty covering industrial property: patents, trademarks, industrial designs, utility models, service marks, trade names, and geographical indicators.

WIPO. “Summary of the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property (1883).” World Intellectual Property Organization. Website. http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/paris/summary_paris.html

[7] WIPO. “WIPO-Administered Treaties: Contracting Parties.” World Intellectual Property Organization. Website. http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ShowResults.jsp?treaty_id=2

[8] The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is the largest free trade agreement in the world, with members Canada, United States, and Mexico.
USTR. “North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).” Office of the United States Representative. Website. http://www.ustr.gov/trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements/north-american-free-trade-agreement-nafta

[9] The Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property RIghts (TRIPS) agreement is a treaty which provides basic intellectual property provisions for international law, and stipulates that members shall be free to determine methods of implementing the provisions, in addition to enact more specific measures provided it coincides with the rest of the agreement.
World Trade Organization. “Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, Including Trade in Counterfeit Goods.”WTO Legal Texts - A Summary of the Final Act of the Uruguay Round. Website. http://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/ursum_e.htm#nAgreement

[10] TRIPS - Article 31.a)

[11] TRIPS - Article 31.b)

[12] TRIPS - Article 31.b)

[13] TRIPS – Article 31.h)

[14] TRIPS – Article 31.c)

[15] TRIPS – Article 31

[16] fWHO. “The Doha Declaration on the TRIPs Agreement and Public Health.” World Health Organization. http://www.who.int/medicines/areas/policy/doha_declaration/en/

[17] Correa, 11-12.

[18] Fauver, Cole M. “Compulsory Patent Licensing in the United States: An Idea Whose Time Has Come.” Northwestern Journal of International Law and Business 8.3 (1988): 666–685. Print. p671

[19] Correa, 13

[20] Ferrell, John. Patent Pro Se: The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Provisional Patent Applications. BayWater Publishing, 2010. Print.

[21] Milchenko, Oleg. “Contemporary Anti-Competetive Practices of Patents Usage.” Journal of International Commercial Law and Technology 8.3 (2013): 1-13. Print.

[22] Shapiro, Carl. “Navigating the Patent Thicket: Cross Licneses, Patent Pools, and Standard Setting.” Innovation Policy and the Economy 1 (2001): 119–150. Print.

[23] McGurk, Thomas B. “The Grant-Back Clause in Your Technology License.” Biodiesel Magazine 17 Jan. 2013.

[24] Origin IP Academy. “Exclusive Grant Back License.” Origiin IP Academy 15 Nov. 2009. Blog. Accessed: http://origiinipae.blogspot.in/2009/11/exclusive-grant-back-license.html

[25] Dykeman, David J. “When Licensing out Patents, Make Sure Improvements Are Granted Back.” Boston Business Journal 8 Mar. 2006. Blog retrieved from: http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/blog/mass-high-tech/2006/03/when-licensing-out-patents-make-sure.html?page=all

[26] Origiin IP Academy. “Coercive Package Licensing.” Origiin IP Academy 11 Nov. 2009. Accessed: http://origiinipae.blogspot.in/2009/11/coercive-package-licensing.html

[27] Reddy, Prashant. “‘Working’ a Patent under the Indian Patent Act, 970 - Does Importation of a Patented Invention Count?” Spicy IP - Decoding Indian Intellectual Property Law. 22 Apr. 2010. Retrieved: http://spicyip.com/2010/04/working-patent-under-indian-patent-act.html

[28] Yang, Deli. “Compulsory Licesning: For Better or for Worse, the Done Deal Lies in the Balance.” Journal of Intellectual Property Rights 17 (2012): 76–81; p80 Print. Global IP Debates

[29] Shaw, Malcom N. International Law 7th Edition. 5th ed. Cambridge University Press, 2003. Print.

[30] Canada had repealed its section on Compulsory Licensing in order to comply with the TRIPS and NAFTA agreements

[31] A more comprehensive approach could be to assess broadly ALL the compulsory licensing cases rather than just a select few ….particularly for United States and Canada...

[32] http://www.aals.org/documents/2006intprop/JeromeReichmanOutline.pdf

[33] Reichman, Jerome. “Compulsory Licensing of Patented Inventions: Comparing United States Law and Practice with Options under the TRIPS Agreement.” Vancouver, Canada: Duke University School of Law, 2006.

[34] Reichman, Jerome H. “Comment: Compulsory Licensing of Patented Pharmaceutical Inventions: Evaluating the Options.” The Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics 37.2 (2009): 247–263. Print.

[35] Pharmaceutical products' means any patented product, or product manufactured through a patented process, of the pharmaceutical sector needed to address public health problems and shall be inclusive of ingredients necessary for their manufacture and diagnostic kits required for their use"

[36] Dratler, Jay. Licensing of Intellectual Property. New York: Law Journal Press, 2005: 7.89 Print.

[37] Miller, Mark E., and David S. Almeling. “DOJ, FTC Redefine Antitrust Rules on Patent Pools.” National Law Journal. 29 Oct. 2007.

[38] Therefore compulsory licensing can be granted given Controller agrees

[39] Raja, Kanaga. “US Leads the World in Use of Compulsory Licenses, Says KEI.” Third World Network. N.p., 18 Mar. 2014.

[40] Bakhru, Rachna. “India Grants First Compulsory Licence under Patents Act.” Intellectual Property Magazine June 2012: 46–47. Print.

[41] Miller Canfield. “China Allows Compulsory Licensing.” Law FIrm of Miller Canfield. Dec. 2012. Retreived: http://www.millercanfield.com/resources-321.html

[42] Genevaz, Simon. “Against Immunity for Unilateral Refusal to Deal in Intellectual Property: Why Antitrust Law Should Not Distingusih between IP and Other Property Rights.” Berkeley Technology Law Journal 19.2 (2014): 742–784. Print.

[43] World Trade Organization. “Canada Is First to Notify Compulsory License to Export Generic Drug.” WTO | 2007 News Items. N.p., 4 Oct. 2007.

[44] sSchmalbeck, Richard L. “The Validity of Grant-Back Clauses in Patent Licensing Agreements.” University of Chicago Law Review 42 (1975): 733–748.

[45] Miller & Ameling, 2007: 3

[46] Lerner, Josh, and Jean Tirole. “Standard-Essential Patents.” Working Paper 43.

[47] Reddy, 2010

[48] See Executive Director of CIS' letter to the government here: http://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/letter-for-establishment-of-patent-pool-for-low-cost-access-devices

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/grounds-for-compulsory-patent-licensing-in-us-canada-china-and-india

Grants:APG/Proposals/2014-2015 round2/The Centre for Internet and Society/Impact report form

hasan — 2016-10-09T14:40:36Z

This form is for organizations receiving Annual Plan Grants to report on their results to date. For progress reports, the time period for this report will the first 6 months of each grant (e.g. 1 January - 30 June of the current year). For impact reports, the time period for this report will be the full 12 months of this grant, including the period already reported on in the progress report (e.g. 1 January - 31 December of the current year).

Read the original published on Wikimedia Blog here.

This form includes four sections, addressing global metrics, program stories, financial information, and compliance. Please contact APG/FDC staff if you have questions about this form, or concerns submitting it by the deadline. After submitting the form, organizations will also meet with APG staff to discuss their progress.

Global metrics overview - all programs

We are trying to understand the overall outcomes of the work being funded across our grantees' programs. Please use the table below to let us know how your programs contributed to the Global Metrics. We understand not all Global Metrics will be relevant for all programs, so feel free to put "0" where necessary. For each program include the following table and

Next to each required metric, list the outcome achieved for all of your programs included in your proposal.
Where necessary, explain the context behind your outcome.
In addition to the Global Metrics as measures of success for your programs, there is another table format in which you may report on any OTHER relevant measures of your programs success.

For more information and a sample, see Global Metrics.

Overall

Metric	Achieved outcome	Explanation
1. # of active editors involved	157	CIS-A2K has been able to increase participation of female editors across its Focus Language Areas.
2. # of new editors	799	Our WEP initiatives have helped in introducing and retaining editors across FLA (except for Odia).
3. # of individuals involved	1200	Public events and anniversary celebrations held in Odia and Kannada have helped Wikimedia projects in reaching the general public as these events have been widely covered by media.
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages	2823	Photo-walks, WEP activities and image re-licensing efforts have helped the A2K team in achieving this metric.
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects	18998	Thematic edit-a-thons anchored by A2K and Collaborative edit-a-thons that have been supported by A2K have been a big hit during the last grant period amongst Indic Wikimedians.
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects	109.64 MB

Kannada

Metric	Achieved outcome	Explanation
1. # of active editors involved	23	As of now the Kannada community is relatively small, A2K would like to expand the user and editor base by taking Wikimedia activities to various parts of the state.
2. # of new editors	609	These numbers include new editors from WEP initiative and editathons conducted as part of 13 Kannada Wikipedia anniversary.
3. # of individuals involved	700	Public event organised during the 13th Kannada Wikipedia anniversary has boosted our reach.
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages	1290	Due to the Photo walk organised as part of the 13th year Kannada Wikipedia anniversary celebrations.
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects	8132	Most of the articles created under WEP initiative are still under sandbox (as a quality enforcing measure), hence the number is low. The number also includes Wikisource folios.
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects	56.5 MB

Konkani

Metric	Achieved outcome	Explanation
1. # of active editors involved	4	Activities in Konkani Wikipedia dipped after the project became live.
2. # of new editors	20	The new editors were introduced to Konkani Wikipedia with the help of Nirmala Institute of Education, Panjim an institutional partner of CIS-A2K.
3. # of individuals involved	50
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages	34
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects	1546	Konkani Wikipedians took the project of creating one article per village in Goa quite enthusiatically.
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects	8.11 MB

Marathi

Metric	Achieved outcome	Explanation
1. # of active editors involved	64	Events conducted at Pune University, Pune and IIT-Bombay involved existing Wikipedians.
2. # of new editors	59	Activities conducted at SWERI, Pandharpur, TISS, Mumbai and IIT-Mumbai have contributed to this.
3. # of individuals involved	150	Involvement of Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Limited opened up new readership to get involved in Marathi Wikimedia projects.
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages	27	A2K team could not organise a dedicated photo walk or invest in image re-licensing activity.
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects	331	Although the number of the articles is low, many new female editors were introduced and have taken up editing on Marathi Wikipedia.
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects	2.64 MB

Odia

Metric	Achieved outcome	Explanation
1. # of active editors involved	21	Wiki Tungi activities are lead by active Wikimedians from the Odia community.
2. # of new editors	56	Nabakalebara edit-a-thon gained a lot of currency on the social media platforms which in turn resulted in new editors for Odia Wikimedia projects.
3. # of individuals involved	120	Three events with Puri WikiTungi (Puri Workshop, 15th Anniversary celebration, and Mission Odisha event), Wikipedia workshop in Utkal University.
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages	601	Nabakalebara edit-a-thon had an in-built component of adding images related to the Rathayatra.
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects	1780	Only pages created in Odia Wikipedia and Odia Wikisource are indicated and not article improved.
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects	9.56 MB

Telugu

Metric	Achieved outcome	Explanation
1. # of active editors involved	30
2. # of new editors	45	Need to try getting more New users on to the board.
3. # of individuals involved	150
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages	871
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects	1342	Includes folios digitized in Wikisource.
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects	7.23 MB

Train-a-Wikipedian

Metric	Achieved outcome	Explanation
1. # of active editors involved	15	Editors who have participated in at least one training session.
2. # of new editors	10	Editors who got beginners' training (includes account creation and basic Wikipedia training such as Wikiformatting, components of Wikipedia, article structure).
3. # of individuals involved	30	#1+#2 and the people who were involved during training sessions.
4. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects	5867
5. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects	25.6 MB

Telling your program stories - all programs

Please tell the story of each of your programs included in your proposal. This is your chance to tell your story by using any additional metrics (beyond global metrics) that are relevant to your context, beyond the global metrics above. You should be reporting against the targets you set at the beginning of the year throughout the year. We have provided a template here below for you to report against your targets, but you are welcome to include this information in another way. Also, if you decided not to do a program that was included in your proposal or added a program not in the proposal, please explain this change. More resources for storytelling are at the end of this form. Here are some ways to tell your story.

We encourage you to share your successes and failures and what you are learning. Please also share why are these successes, failures, or learnings are important in your context. Reference learning patterns or other documentation.

Make clear connections between your offline activities and online results, as applicable. For example, explain how your education program activities is leading to quality content on Wikipedia.

We encourage you to tell your story in different ways by using videos, sound files, images (photos and infographics, e.g.), compelling quotes, and by linking directly to work you produce. You may highlight outcomes, learning, or metrics this way.

We encourage you to continue using dashboards, progress bars, and scorecards that you have used to illustrate your progress in the past, and to report consistently over time.

You are welcome to use the table below to report on any metrics or measures relevant to your program. These may or may not include the global metrics you put in the overview section above. You can also share your progress in another way if you do not find a table like this useful.

A2K key activities

During this grant period CIS-A2K has organized and supported a number of events in collaboration with Indic Wikimedia community members. Some of those are:

July 2015	August 2015	September 2015
Konkani Wikipedia goes live, (See more)	Telugu Wikipedia edit-a-thon at Annamacharya library Tulu Wikipedia edit-a-thon in Mangalore (See more)	Seminar on "Empowering Marathi Schools", Pune, Kannda Wikipedia meetup (See more)
October 2015	November 2015	December 2015
Konkani language book donation (See more)	4 Indic language communities IRC meeting, Community discussion for making Tulu Wikipedia live (See more)	Sau Dhuni Teen Project: December Wikipedia Edit-a-thon, Initiative to bring 1000 books about the culture of Maharashtra on Marathi Wikipedia (See more)
January 2016	February 2016	March 2016
Konkani-language Edit-a-thon and English-Romi Konkani dictionary release, Geographical Indications in India Edit-a-thon (See more)	Digitisation sprint at Andhra Loyola College, Kannada Wikipedia's 13th anniversary (See more)	(See more) National Wikipedia Education review program, Odia-language Women’s History Month edit-a-thons (See more)
April 2016	May 2016	June 2016
Odia Wikipedia's 14th anniversary (See more)	Mini TTT and MWT in Pune, Advanced training for Kannada-language Wikimedians (See more)	Train the Trainer 2016, MediaWiki Training (See more)

Capacity building

Train the Trainer

Train the Trainer (or TTT in short) is a residential program that attempts to groom leadership skills among the Indian Wikimedians. Participating Wikimedians interact with A2K staff members and community leaders towards designing, implementing and documenting activities such as outreach, GLAM projects, edit-a-thons, etc. Various topics such as grants' structure, funding opportunities both with A2K and WMF, effective reporting and documentation, use of Global and other metrics, etc., are also covered.

After the first 2 iterations in 2013 and 2015, the third iteration of the training program was conducted in June 2016.

Diversity

In this iteration—

Language: 16 Wikimedians from 10 different language communities participated as shown in the pie chart below.

Participants of TTT 2016, representing different language communities

Gender: This year we had 5 female participants (out of 15 participants). After the 2013 iteration we felt we should try to encourage more female Wikipedians to participate in TTT. However, this does not mean that we had any different eligibility criteria set for the female Wikipedians.

Participants division by gender

Representation of Indic Wikimedia communities: We had participants from all over India. Although TTT is a national-level event, we also had participants from outside of India (Nepal and Sri Lanka).

Lessons learnt

TTT 2016 participants

After the 2015 version we found that a few participants faced difficulties to understand and work on the pre-event presentations. This year (2016), we have given more detailed instructions and were in touch with the participants while they were doing pre-event works.
By dovetailing TTT and MWT, A2K team was able to bring Indic Wikimedians working for outreach and on technical front together. This helped the participants to create a wishlist regarding tools, gadgets, and other technical help required to conduct effective outreach activities.

Based on participants' feedback and suggestions plus our own observations, while keeping Wikimedia Foundation's guidelines in mind, we make necessary changes to our program structure. In this year's TTT we made a number of changes‖

We encouraged more eligible female editors to participate.
We found that the objective and aims of the event remained unclear to a few participants in the earlier iterations. This year we have given more attention to explain the program's objectives, aims and expectations.

Challenges

We expected that the participants would be in touch with us while planning, conducting, and making reports of an event. After 2015 TTT^[1] we found a few participants did not respond to our emails or messages.
While TTT 2016 participants have shown active interest during WCI-related edit-a-thon, the same level of interest was not seen during regular monthly meetups.
Despite having communicated to the TTT 2015 participants that a mini TTT should be organized in their communities, however this was not taken up actively.

Mediawiki Training

Participants of MWT 2016, during the workshop

MediaWiki Training (MWT) is an annual residential training workshop that intends to bridge the prevalent gap between outreach volunteers and MediaWiki volunteers and developers. MWT attempts to create and groom 'tech' leaders from the existing Indian language Wikipedians. It aims to facilitate discussions around nurturing leadership regarding technical issues such as filing bugs that hinder the growth of Indian language Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects. At the same time, it encourages active contribution towards improving the existing MediaWiki software from the participants to understand importance of utilizing technology for outreach activities.

The first iteration of the event was held on 24-27 June 2015. 14 editors from 8 Indic communities participated in this workshop. Some of the topics taught during the workshop were: Bugs -presentation, demo & case study, Bots - Pywiki & AWB, MediaWiki tools, TranslateWiki, Quarry, WikiMetrics, APIs, User scripts.

The second iteration of the workshop was conducted on 17-19 June 2016 in Bangalore. MWT 2016 was planned to facilitate an idea-exchange platform between outreach volunteers and MWT participants. 11 editors from 6 Indic Wikimedia communities recieved training during this workshop. Some of the topics discussed during the program were Wikidata, usage of Wikimedia labs tools, templates and infobox creation, as well as AutoWikiBrowser (AWB).

Lessons learnt

Ensure better logistics co-ordination thus guaranteeing involved participation from the participants.
Priority topics must be given more time.

Challenges

Scheduling follow-up events such as mini version of MWT across Indic Wikimedia communities.
To identify female Wikimedians and encourage them to participate in MWT.

Train-a-Wikipedian

Train-a-Wikipedian session in Hyderabad on 15 May 2016

Train-a-Wikipedian (TAW) was started in December 2015 to identify enthusiastic Indic Wikipedians, to train and groom them to develop their editing skills. Inspired by the Adopt-a-User program of the English-language-Wikipedia, this initiative is working on encouraging new Wikimedians who nominate themselves to learn basic Wikimedia policies. Until 30 June 2016, more than 25 training sessions have been conducted.

The concept of Train-a-Wikipedian was appreciated by several Indic Wikimedians from different communities.
More than 25 Wikimedians signed up for this program.

Reflections

These are some of the reflections/feedback we received from Train-a-Wikipedian participants:

Username

	Community	Topics/Learnings	Feedback/Reflections
User:Nrgullapalli (Training page)	Telugu Wikipedia	Policy discussion such as civility, stub, How to search in a better way using operators etc on the web to get references Introduction to The Wikipedia Library / Resource exchange / CIS-A2K Resource exchange.	“ The training was helpful, I learned a couple of new tools. But I feel such trainings should be conducted on regular basis and follow-ups should be done. ”
User:Mouryan (Training page)	Bengali Wikipedia	Essentials of conducting local Wiki-event. Using special pages such as Special:UncategorizedPages,, Special:ShortPages etc., Google Books citation, Metrics.wikimedia.org	“ It was amazing and a quite enriching experience for me at a personal level sir. The things I learnt at Train-a-Wikipedian Hyderabad actually paid the results soon enough.and it enabled to successfully conduct my first offline Wikipedia Meetup in Kolkata just within one month's time. . . ”
User:Rajasekhar1961 (Training page)	Telugu Wikipedia	AdminTools such as MoreMenu, QuickWikiEditor, Citation making using Google Books citation tool, autofilling (from reftoolbar), DOI citation tool; Quick Page purging	“ I picked up some very useful skills & learnt good tools. But, I became a little inactive after that so could not utilize these learnings much. I hope to do so in future.

Lessons learnt

This initiative was inspired by English Wikipedia's program Adopt-a-user, however we found that we must make necessary changes to meet requirements of Indic Wikimedians.
Real-life training sessions left a deeper impact and motivated Wikimedians much more than online training modules.

Challenges

We failed to conduct sufficient number of offline training sessions.
Follow-ups have not been done for a couple of workshops, for example a TAW workshop was conducted in Hyderabad on 15 May and was well-received, but no follow-up TAW workshop has been conducted since then in the city.
From A2K's side sometimes there were delays in connecting and co-ordinating with the signed-up participants. On the other hand sometimes, we did not got responses from the participants when we contacted them.

Policies and guidelines on Indic Wikipedias

Indic Wikipedia policy handbook

CIS-A2K started working on a project to support and encourage Indic Wikipedians to create and/or localize policies in their native languages. A survey was conducted and a policy handbook was also created.

Lessons learnt

Efforts must be taken to initiate discussion regarding creation, localisation of policies in events organized by A2K

Challenges

Although a few policy-discussion meetups have been conducted (such as this one), we faced difficulties finding volunteer translators to translate the handbook into Indic languages.

Play media

Dr. Soubhagyavathi talks about Kannada Wikipedia

Kannada

Kannada Wikipedia Edit-a-thon partcipants at DSERT in January 2016

Kannada Wikipedia has reached the 20,000 article mark during this year. Kananda community members collaboratively designed the plan for the 13th Kannada Wikipedia anniversary. This activity brought together Wikimedians from different parts of Karnataka. By applying for a PEG Kannada Wikipedians have interacted with global Wikipedians and WMF staff. This event resulted in new editors and outreach activities in various parts of Karnataka. A2K has appointed a Program Associate as per its revised strategy A2K 2.0 for Kannada Wikimedia projects.

Institutional partnership

Two new partnerships have been initiated during this grant period–

The Department of State Educational Research and Training (DSERT), Government of Karnataka and
Alva's Education Foundation at Moodabidri.

While Alva's Education Foundation is going to be a partner in implementing Wikipedia Education Program. DSERT is an institution that trains school teachers all across Karnataka state. A2K will be training the trainers about using and editing Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects in the context of their classroom. However, the 3 other institutional partnerships - Karnataka Janapada University, Manjusha Museum, Dharmasthala, and Tumkur University, Tumkur- that were anticipated during the writing of workplan, could not materialize. This was due to the delay in recruiting a Program Associate for the Kannada Wikimedia projects.

A2K has successfully continued its earlier partnerships and has benefited from their advice regarding our WEP activities and workplan.

Awareness and Outreach

Both the DSERT partnership and the 13th anniversary helped raise awareness around thematic article writing which encouraged Kannada Wikipedians to engage in projects. Various editing projects on literature, science, engineering subjects were taken up actively by the community members. Approximately 225 articles were created exclusively as part of 13th year anniversary celebrations.

Offline versions of Kannada Wikipedia (using kiwix) were distributed through flash drives like this during 13th year Kannada Wikipedia anniversary

CIS-A2K also tried to engage in skill-building activities for the Kannada community members. As per the requests from volunteers, capacity building programs were arranged both in groups and in one-on-one settings to individual Wikimedians. Both TTT and MWT saw active participation from Kannada community. The results of these would be visible in the coming months.

In order to increase the offline readership of Kannada Wikipedia, offline versions of Kannada Wikipedia (using kiwix) were distributed through flash drives during 13th year Kannada Wikipedia anniversary held at Mangalore. 50 such flash drives have been distributed so far to those in need.

Lessons learnt

Kannada was not properly represented in terms of blogs and media coverage and we have been working on addressing this issue.
A better communication method would be devised with inputs from the community members.

Gating factors

A2K has not been successful towards re-releasing of textbooks published by the Government of Karnataka under CC-by-SA licences.

An orientation for Kananda bloggers, some of who could be potential Wikimedians, has not taken place.
Some community members have repeatedly emphasized on having better communication, documentation of activities taken up by the Program Associate.

Odia

Active editors in Odia Wikipedia during the period July 2015 to Feb 2016

Through the community building activities such as the formation of Puri WikiTungi and revival of Bhubaneswar WikiTungi, active editors of the Odia Wikipedia movement reached 30 editors (as of 30 June 2016). Regular follow-up with Wikimedians on-Wiki and via different social media channels along with monthly meetups has helped in editor retention. This has further encouraged Odia Wikimedians to participate in both on-Wiki and off-Wiki activities.

CIS-A2K has supported the community to celebrate the 14th Anniversary of Odia Wikipedia, which facilitated 30 Wikimedians to meet and discuss the future activities for Odia Wikimedia projects.

Formation of Puri WikiTungi

Play media

Adyasha Sahu a Wikimedian from Puri community sharing her journey in the Wikimedia movement.

Puri WikiTungi is a city-based editing group formed by Wikimedians from Puri to spread awareness about Odia Wikimedia projects in and around the city. This group was formed after the first Wikipedia workshop in Puri. Around 30 individuals attended the workshop. 14 participants from this workshop have emerged as active editors on Odia Wikipedia and Odia Wikisource. They are also involved in conducting offline meet-ups, seminar and workshops.

Bridging the Gender gap

Gender diversity in Odia Wikimedia community during 2014-16. For this statistics Odia Wikipedia and Odia Wikisource have been considered.

CIS-A2K has engaged with seven new female Wikipedians and this has resulted in their active participation on Odia Wikimedia projects. One of the female Wikmedians, Chinmayee Mishra has independently conducted a Wikipedia orientation workshop. This workshop has boosted participation of female Wikipedians. Their efforts have been discussed through blog posts and other social media platforms.

Lessons learnt

Two organizations are unofficially supporting Odia Wikimedia community by providing meetup space and internet access for Bhubaneswar and Puri WikiTungis. A2K must make official agreements with these institutions.

Gating factors

Failed to build a partnership with any institution for running Education program for Odia Wikimedia projects. Awareness about the importance of WEPs is required for achieving this.

Telugu

A2K team has been successfully collaborating with Telugu Wikipedia community to improve content quality on Telugu Wikipedia and strengthen the community by increasing its reader and editor base. The team also shares ideas by providing and extending support such as involving community members in discussions with potential partners and designing programs based on their suggestions. Such collaboration has strengthened communities to conduct many Edit-a-thons which have resulted in a wide variety of quality articles. A2K intends to continue such collaborative activities resulting in improvements of stub and poorly translated articles.

Activities and Events

CIS-A2K team has been involved in conducting (holding or co-ordinating) several edit-a-thons in Telugu Wikimedia community, while a few were anchored in Telugu, others were multi-lingual. Many initiatives of the last grant period (i.e. July 2014 to June 2015) have been continued. A2K and the community have collaboratively organised an of sharing resources has resulted in which focused on improving Telugu movie articles. Community members have expanded stubs with information, references and photos. For the edit-a-thon A2K provided resources and references and the community members developed stub articles and created new articles.

Capacity building activities have also been carried out with Telugu Wikipedians. A copyrights session was conducted to improve Telugu Wikimedians' understanding on the subject and clear doubts for Wikisource contributors. Community members, Meena Gayathri and T.Sujatha, attending CIS A2K's Train-a-Wikipedian session have expressed that they gained invaluable knowledge and skills in content translation. The two later initiated a project to improve the quality of Google Translated articles. More than 30 such articles have been improved through it.

Similarly, the Quick introduction sessions held in Hyderabad community meet-ups by CIS A2K helped explain some online tools usage and enabled Wikipedians to contribute better for Wikimedia projects. One of the most active Wikipedians, Swaralasika, said that he was able to make better citations after the sessions which has helped him improve his editing.

Institutional Partnership

With the institutional partnerships established between CIS A2K and Annamayya library, Telugu Wikisource community members have uploaded some of the missing pages in on Telugu Wikisource. Due to the attempts of the community members towards proofreading these books can be downloaded now. The Andhra Loyola College partnership has also cultivated new editors and engage in WEP activities.

Outreach and Media

Increased media coverage has helped the cause of Telugu Wikimedia projects. Hard work of several Telugu Wikipedians (such as Pranayraj and Viswanadh) has been recognized and highlighted. Pranayraj points out that the media coverage helped him reach more people who want to contribute to Wikipedia.

Lessons learnt

A2K team has been working to make Telugu Wikipedia more visible in popular Telugu media, especially in printed media such as off-wiki and on-wiki events coverage in major local newspapers like Eenadu, Sakshi, Andhra Jyothi
WEP activities at partner institutions need to be synchronized with their academic schedule.

Gating factors

Technical support requests from the community were delayed on our end. To overcome this, we are trying to find interns to assign technical tasks requested from communities.

Konkani

Play media

Darshan Kandolkar talks about Konkani Wikipedia

Having gone live since July 2015 after nine years of incubation, Goan Konkani Wikipedia has developed and expanded with the help of CIS A2K to draw more contributors and resources into the project. CIS-A2K has attempted to develop Konkani Wikipedia in all the three scripts (Romi, Devanagari, Kannada). Institutions such as Thomas Stephen Konkani Kendra (TSKK) for Romi script, Goa Konkani Sahitya Academy for Devanagari script, Karnataka Konkani Sahitya Academy for Kannada script have agreed to donate content.

Department of Computer Science, Goa University, had organized an edit-a-thon to include the villages of Goa state on Konkani Wikipedia.

Due to the discontinuation of the Program Associate for Konkani, several of our programmatic activities have not been accomplished during this grant period.

Partnership

In the past year, CIS-A2K had the honour to collaborate with Mannd Sobhaann and World Konkani Centre, organizations working with Konkani language and culture, to bring in more resources into Konkani Wikipedia. These two organizations work for popularization and conservation of Konkani culture and language. Mannd Sobhaan has donated three Konkani books under CC-BY-SA license which has provided great sources for citation and references. On the other hand, these organizations have also agreed to hold GLAM activities, while A2K would digitize their archives of audio, video and text resources to further expand resources available for Konkani Wikimedia projects.

Activities and Events

A one-day edit-a-thon was organized at Krishnadas Shama Central Library, Goa in January 2016. Members of CIS-A2K participated in this event to help mentor the participants. The event created 100 new articles on Konkani Wikipedia in a single day.

Lessons learnt

Increase editor base by engaging academicians and bloggers.
Increase readership by introducing Konkani Wikipedia in primary and higher primary schools.

Gating factors

Activity in the end of 2015 was low in Konkani Wikipedia that no new articles were created in November and December.
Non-availability of a Program Associate

Marathi

Partnership

Maharashtra Granthottejak Sanstha (MGS) has re-licensed 1000 books on the culture, history, and literature under CC-by-SA 4.0 license in October, 2015. In December 2015, a discussion was initiated by CIS A2K at The Energy Resources Institute (TERI) to plan digitization and uploading of the books for Marathi Wikisource.

Events and Outreach

A two-day workshop was organised by the CIS A2K Program Associate in August 2015 at Srimati Savitribai Phule Pune University. This workshop was an attempt to bridge the gender gap on Marathi Wikipedia. The "Sau Dhuni Teen" project focused on creating Wikipedia articles on notable women, themes and works related to gender studies. This event attracted new editors and introduced to them input methods for Marathi methods and basic guidelines of contributing to Wikipedia. The event also served as an important initiative to utilize Wikipedia in generating Indian language annotations on academic sources in Women's Studies and the Social Sciences.

In May, 2016, CIS A2K organized a two-day mini version of Train-the-trainer (TTT) and Mediawiki Training (MWT) for Marathi Wikimedians in Pune. Topics covered in the Mediawiki training include Wikidata, bug triage, Mediawiki extensions, etc., while the TTT session focused on advanced editing skills, outreach planning, and grants structure introduction.

Lessons learnt

A strategy is required to utilize books donated by Maharashtra Granthottejak Sanstha (MGS) as references on Marathi Wikipedia.
Spreading Marathi Wikipedia-related activities to different parts of Maharashtra .

Gating factors

Some participants of workshops reflect that unavailability of sandboxes in Marathi Wikipedia was a concern for new editor as they were unsure if the article might be changed during the time they edit.

General Support and Service to the Movement

Play media

Odia Wikisourcer Pankajmala Sarangi shares her experience and future plans to grow the community. Video by Pankajmala Sarangi (original video) and Subhashish Panigrahi (post production), CC BY-SA 4.0. Pankajmala recorded the video herself covering a few specific topics sent over email.

Partnership Summary

Growing partnerships in WEPs: A2K team has successfully continued all the partnerships form the previous grant period and has also been able to bring new partners onboard thus adding value to the Wikimedia movement. A2K conducted a review program for its WEP partners in Bangalore during the last grant period. This review program allowed the WEP partners across 3 different states to meet and discuss the salient features of the WEP initiative being run at their institutions. This review program helped A2K team to understand institutional expectations and challenges. The review meeting also helped us to generate inter institutional collaboration and sync A2K schedule with academic calendar of these institutions.
Book/Resource donation and digitization: A2K team is immensely happy to have partnered with Maharashtra Granthottejak Sanstha which has donated 1000 books about the Maratha administration, culture, history and social life. Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Limited, Pune has offered us in-kind support by digitising all these books and making them available to be uploaded on Marathi Wikisource.
Our collaboration with Manasu Foundation, Bangalore has also allowed us to digitise content donated to A2K for free. Andhra Loyola College, Vijayawada now hosts a Digital Resource Lab that provides nevessary infrastructure (Computers, Internet access and printing facility) for all the Telugu Wikimedians.
Centurion University, Bhubhaneswar has expressed in digitising Odia publications from the copyright lapse period. With this partnership A2K expects to add close to 50000 folios to Odia Wikisource.
Goa University partnership and Indian village articles: After a brief lull in the activities of Konkani Wikipedia activities have spiked up again mainly because of the encouragement offered by Goa University. Prof. Madhav Gadgil with support from Goa University has launched a project of using the Census of India data to create articles on Villages of India. This activity has been eagerly taken up by the Konkani community members.Encouraged by the level of enthusiasm shown by the Konkani community members Telugu, Marathi and Odia community members have also been engaged in creating articles on villages of India in their respective languages.
Partnership in image re-licensing: Alva's Education Foundation have donated more than 15000 images under CC-BY_SA license. These images depict the folk art forms, famous personalities, cultural practices, tribal costumes and other areas regarding the social and cultural life of Karnataka in particular and South India in general.
Decision of focusing on existing partnerships: Many institutions that were indicated under the category 'To be explored' for a partnership during this plan year have not been approached as A2K team worked towards consolidating its work with the existing institutions rather than crowding our resources. This decision was taken in accordance with the suggestion of community members and FDC suggestion.
Partnership re-assessment: A further re-assessment of Institutional partnerships based on the parameters of RoI, contribution to Global Metrics and community support will be undertaken during the grant period July 2016- June 2017. Thus providing the A2K team opportunity to consolidate its work further and adopting course corrections (such as working with a different Wikimedia project, changing target group, conducting intensive summer/winter camps and if necessary exiting the partnership).

Outreach Strategies Development

Online and offline media outreach strategies: Stories related to Indian language Wikipedias and Wikimedia projects used to get less attention in the regional language media in India. There has been a hike in news articles and columns related to Indic-language Wikimedia projects both in print and electronic media. One of the most important reasons behind this is the establishment and growing relations with journalists and news editors that are responsible for specific genre of news. Actively writing opinion pieces to newspaper editorials and making blog posts on popular online portals are another reason.
Laying out strategies for recruiting new contributors using social media: Learning from our past initiative experiences such as the movement where new contributors on social media helped Odia Wikisource go live^[2], CIS-A2K has been helping communities with online outreach strategies. Some of the lessons learned can be found in this learning pattern.

Other Communication and Contribution

Balance of Focus Language Area (FLA) and non-FLA language: As CIS-A2K has been working primarily in five focus languages (Kannada, Konkani, Marathi, Odia and Telugu, with Tulu and Santali as two additional languages), there has been more attention paid to the aforementioned seven languages and less on the remaining Indian languages. The same pattern also reflects in our media outreach. To balance this and to provide support in the larger Indic language community, CIS-A2K has made efforts in connecting non-FLA Wikimedians with global community leaders^[3] and writing about work accomplished in non-FLA communities.^[4]
Highlighting the' community-led projects and less-known languages: CIS-A2K has contributed and highlighting in promoting the projects that are primarily community-led^[5] that are not necessarily catalyzed by the CIS-A2K. Also, via public speaking and publications, CIS-A2K has attempted to promote indigenous and the less-known languages of India.^[6]

Challenges

Labor intensive WEP programs: WEP initiative at many of our institutions have proven to be labour intensive. A2K team has not been able to integrate its efforts with the community members. There has also been a perception that the participating Higher Education institutions are required to only provide infrastructure and carve time out of academic schedule. This leads to a situation where the A2K team is often forced to devote time and resources towards the evaluation of assignments.
Lack of institutional partnership in Odia community: Despite the A2K team's attempts to establish formal institutional partnership and further a WEP initiative in Odia language, we have not been successful. With the consent of the Odia community A2K team has approached Centurion University regarding setting up a Wikisource Learning Centre.

CIS-A2K request page

CIS-A2K has a request page intended for Wikimedian/s from India to place requests for support from CIS-A2K. Between 1 July 2015 and 30 June 2016, CIS-A2K has supported 21 such programs/initiatives. The communities supported by CIS-A2K include Odia, Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam, Bengali etc. Besides offering financial support to conduct events, CIS-A2K has also provided non-financial support such as SWAG material, and technical and documentaion support.

Some of the events/initiatives we have supported are

Odia Wikipedians conducting Nabakalebara edit-a-thon (July 2015), Odia Wikisource 1st anniversary celebration (October 2015), Wikipedia's 15th Birthday celebration (January 2016)
funding Bengali Wikipedia community to conduct a workshop (Wikiacademy) (August 2015), a meetup (October 2015), and an "in-depth Meet-up of Bengali Wikipedia editor community in Kolkata" (June 2016)
helping Malayalam Wikimedia community to organize a meet-up at Kozhikode, Kerala (July 2015), and Wikisangamotsavam 2015 (December)
support Telugu Wikipedians to conduct a photowalk and a joint Telugu-English Wikimedians’ meetup in Hyderabad (both in December)
supporting two-day workshop on Samskrit Wikisource - 2016

Lessons learnt

WMF grants opportunities should be discussed and promoted amongst Indic Wikimedia communities.
Wikimedia communities must be encouraged to optimize in-kind support such as event venue, internet connectivity.

Challenges

We have continuously informed communities that a request (specially if it is a large one) should come to us at least 3-4 weeks before the event date(s). However we have received requests at the last moment and hence faced difficulties (such as time-pressure) reviewing and process these requests in time.
We ask communities to submit expenditure details and narrative report of an event soon after its completion. However, we have faced difficulties collecting the said records in time.

Revenues received during this period (6 month for progress report, 12 months for impact report)

Provide exchange rate used:

1 USD = 61.88 INR

Table 2 Please report all spending in the currency of your grant unless US$ is requested.

Please also include any in-kind contributions or resources that you have received in this revenues table. This might include donated office space, services, prizes, food, etc. If you are to provide a monetary equivalent (e.g. $500 for food from Organization X for service Y), please include it in this table. Otherwise, please highlight the contribution, as well as the name of the partner, in the notes section.

Revenue source	Currency	Anticipated	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Cumulative	Anticipated ($US)*	Cumulative ($US)*	Explanation of variances from plan
GSMA	INR	263,783.00	263,783.00	-	-	-	263,783.00	4262.73	4262.73
Wikimedia Foundation	INR	12,000,000.00	6,997,845.00	-	4,998,082.00	-	11,995,927.00	193,923.72	193,857.90
Kusuma Foundation	INR	15,000,000.00	7,500,000.00	-	7,500,000.00	-	15,000,000.00	242,404.65	242,404.65
MacArthar Foundation	INR	6,593,625.00	6,593,625.00	-	-	-	6,593,625.00	106,555.03	106,555.03
Cybersteward Project	INR	495,100.00	495,100.00	-	-	-	495,100.00	8,000.97	8,000.97
Big Data MF	INR	4,578,734.00	-	4,578,734.00	-	-	4,578,734.00	73,993.76	73,993.76
Privacy International	INR	3,883,300.63	-	405,388.00	3,477,912.63	-	3,883,300.63	62,755.34	62,755.34
IDRC	INR	6,751,260.57	-	-	6,751,260.57	-	6,751,260.57	109,102.47	109,102.47
The Mozilla Corporation	INR	662,173.00	-	-	-	662,173.00	662,173.00	10,700.92	10,700.92

* Provide estimates in US Dollars

Grants	Explanation
GSMA	This fund is allocated to CIS for GSMA project undertaken in collaboration with Privacy International. The research has sought to understand different legal and regulatory aspects of security and surveillance in India.
Wikimedia Foundation	Wikimedia Foundation has given this grant, as part of their APG, to work with the Wikimedia community of volunteers in India to expand Wikimedia’s Indic language free knowledge projects, including Wikipedia in Indic languages. In addition, the grant aims to generate improvements in India-relevant free knowledge in Wikimedia’s English projects and wider distribution of free knowledge within India.
Kusma Foundation Fund	Kusuma Foundation funds the core of CIS programmes.

Spending during this period (6 month for progress report, 12 months for impact report)

Please use the exchange rate in your APG proposal.

Table 3 Please report all spending in the currency of your grant unless US$ is requested.

(The "budgeted" amount is the total planned for the year as submitted in your proposal form or your revised plan, and the "cumulative" column refers to the total spent to date this year. The "percentage spent to date" is the ratio of the cumulative amount spent over the budgeted amount.)

Expense	Currency	Budgeted	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Cumulative	Budgeted ($US)*	Cumulative ($US)*	Percentage spent to date	Explanation of variances from plan
Staff Cost	INR	5,884,320.00	986,800.00	1,328,057.00	1,695,815.00	1,455,531.00	5,466,203.00	95,092.44	88,335.54	92.9	Slightly under spent
Staff Travel & Stay	INR	985,000.00	211,267.00	162,566.00	453,724.00	-	827,557.00	15,917.91	13,373.58	84.02	Due to inclusion of Program Associates presence staff travel has come down
Volunteer Support	INR	1,530,000.00	41,847.00	422,041.00	100,631.00	764,787.00	1,329,306.00	24,725.27	21,482.00	86.89	Increased activities with the intervention of Program Associates
Meetups	INR	895,000.00	84,285.00	4,679.00	151,904.00	114,825.00	355,693.00	14,463.48	5,748.11	39.74	A2K team has conducted Train-the-Trainer and Media Wiki Training during the last quarter of the grant period. These receipts will be updated in the final cumulative financial report
Digitization	INR	150,000.00	5,250.00	-	10,250.00	-	15,500.00	2,424.05	250.48	39.74	Purchase of scanners to assist communities towards digitisation has been done
Equipment	INR	80,000.00	-	170,000.00	362,430.00	122,660.00	655,090.00	1,292.82	10,586.46	819	Essential equipment such as laptops, video camera and hard disks purchased for newly hired Program Associates and A2K staff
Assistant/Intern	INR	110,000.00	20,000.00	30,000.00	110,000.00	-	160,000.00	1,777.63	2,585.65	145.45	Hiring of 3 Program Associates has resulted in over spending
Consumables (Printing, Statinery, Swag)	INR	460,000.00	-	-	-	-	0	7,433.74	0	0	A2K was unable to utilise these funds for publishing and distributing of Community Resources
Miscellaneous	INR	165,000.00	89,003.00	21,207.00	50,978.00	50,442.00	211,630.00	2,666.45	3,420.01	128	Unanticipated expenses regarding orientation of PA
Design/Documentation & Research	INR	50,000.00	-	20,950.00	-	16,508.00	37,458.00	808.02	605.33	75	Optimal spending
Program Advisor	INR	580,800.00	132,000.00	132,000.00	132,000.00	132,000.00	528,000.00	9,385.91	8,532.64	90.9	Optimal spending
TOTAL	INR	11,979,132.00	1,570,452.00	2,291,500.00	3,067,732.00	2,656,753.00	9,586,437.00	193,586.49	154,919.80	80	Final Financial report will have the cumulative details.

* Provide estimates in US Dollars

Compliance

Is your organization compliant with the terms outlined in the grant agreement?

As required in the grant agreement, please report any deviations from your grant proposal here. Note that, among other things, any changes must be consistent with our WMF mission, must be for charitable purposes as defined in the grant agreement, and must otherwise comply with the grant agreement.

Are you in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations as outlined in the grant agreement? Please answer "Yes" or "No".

Are you in compliance with provisions of the United States Internal Revenue Code (“Code”), and with relevant tax laws and regulations restricting the use of the Grant funds as outlined in the grant agreement? Please answer "Yes" or "No".

References

2016 TTT version was conducted between 15–17 June 2016, and in this impact report we are reporting only till 30 June 2016. Although we have seen positive impact after this year's TTT, we are not including these in this report.
Panigrahi, Subhashish. "More Than 40 Million People Await the Launch of Odia Wikisource". Wikimedia Blog (21 October 2014).
[ Roali], an IME for Assamese language that is quite popular in the Assamese speakers, came live after long time. CIS-A2K has worked closely with the developer of this IME, some of the Assamese Wikipedia community members and Wikimedia Foundation's Language Engineering team in the entire process.
Broadening the scope of blogs CIS-A2K has contributed to the larger Indic communities has been a constant effort, though in a limited capacity. A few such blogs can be read here: 1, 2, and 3.
In this article, a community-led project for creating a script encoding converter for the Odia-language Wikimedia projects was highlighted. There were more publication in the Odia newspapers and the project was promoted on social media so that more people contribute using the Unicode standard. The latter will eventually help spread the language's reach on the Internet.
CIS-A2K and type designer Pooja Saxena submitted a paper and presented a paper titled "Bringing Ol Chiki to the digital world" at the Typoday 2016, an annual conference in India to bring type designers and script experts under one roof. The presentation is about CIS-A2K's work in bringing a freely-licensed typeface for the Ol Chiki script that is used to write Santali, an indigenous language spoken across several countries in South Asia.

Signature

Once complete, please sign below with the usual four tildes.

Lahariyaniyathi (talk) 17:01, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Resources

Resources to plan for measurement

Global metrics are an important starting point for grantees when it comes to measuring programmatic impact (Learning Patterns and Tutorial) but don’t stop there.
Logic Models provide a framework for mapping your pathway to impact through the cause and effect chain from inputs to outputs to outcomes. Develop a logic model to map out your theory of change and determine the metrics and measures for your programs.
Importantly, both qualitative and quantitative measures are important so consider both as you determine measures for your evaluation and be sure to ask the right questions to be sure to capture your program stories.

Resources for storytelling

WMF storytelling series and toolkit (DRAFT)
Online workshop on Storytelling. By Frameworks institute
- The origin of storytelling
- Story frames, with a focus on news-worthiness.
Reading guide: Storytelling and Social change. By Working Narratives
- The uses of the story.
- Case studies.
Blog: 3 Tips on telling stories that move people to action. By Paul VanDeCarr (Working Narratives), on Philanthropy.com
Building bridges using narrative techniques. By Sparknow.net
- Differences between a report and a story
- Question guides and exercises.
Guide: Tools for Knowledge and Learning. By Overseas Development Institute (UK).
- Developing a strategy
- Collaboration mechanisms
- Knowledge sharing and learning
- Capturing and storing knowledge.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/grants-apg-proposals-2014-2015-round2-the-centre-for-internet-and-society-impact-report-form

Govt for Legalising Parallel Import of Copyright Works; Publishers Oppose

Shamnad Basheer — 2011-08-30T10:19:35Z

Section 2(m) legalises the parallel imports of books and other copyrighted material into India and was part of the initial Copyright Amendment Bill introduced in the Parliament of India in 2010.

Section 2(m) reads as below:

"[P]rovided that a copy of a work published in any country outside India with the permission of the author of the work and imported from that country into India shall not be deemed to be an infringing copy."

Unfortunately, the government did a sudden volte face owing to pressure from publisher lobbies and deleted it from the latest version of the Bill. The provision would have helped students gain access to the latest affordable versions of text books from around the world.

When the Bill was referred to a Parliamentary Standing Committee for review, the said Committee strongly supported the introduction of section 2(m) and stated as below:

"that availability of low priced books under the present regime is invariably confined to old editions. Nobody can deny the fact that the interests of students will be best protected if they have access to latest editions of the books."

"Nobody can deny the fact that the interests of students will be best protected if they have access to latest editions of the books. Thus, apprehensions about the flooding of the primary market with low priced editions, may be mis-founded as such a situation would be tackled by that country's law. The Committee would, however, like to put a note of caution to the government to ensure that the purpose for which the amendment is proposed i.e., to protect the interest of the students is not lost sight of."

Despite the Standing Committees support, it is curious as to why the government dropped this provision, particularly when it would have tremendously helped a number of students gain access to latest low priced editions of text books from around the world. It ought not to have succumbed to the pressures of the publishing lobby.

Empirical studies done on this count clearly demonstrate that publishers only introduce old versions of books in India. The latest versions have to be imported, and they are very expensive, often times costing more than what they cost in the US and EU. See the Economic Times article documenting this empirical study here.

Further, an easy right of import enables any third party to import books which could also then be made available in accessible formats to the visually impaired.

Download the Economic Times article by Shamnad Basheer here. [PDF, 470 Kb]

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/govt-legalising-parallel-import-of-copyright-work

Government of Odisha adopting Creative Commons License to Promote Transparency and Access to Knowledge

Sailesh Patnaik — 2018-01-18T01:22:40Z

This year started with an astonishing announcement by the Government of Odisha towards the free knowledge movement. On the Public Domain day, which is celebrated every year on 1st January, The Government of Odisha continuing its collaboration with the Odia Wikipedia community has announced to release the content of its two major departments under Creative Commons license.

Last year, the Government of Odisha became the first state government in India to release their social media content under free license and released the content of its 8 social media accounts and the website of 2017 Asian athletics Championships under CC-BY-4.0 international license, which has overall helped in adding 207 distinct images into various Wikipedia projects.

The decision about the relicensing of the content was announced to the public in a tweet by the twitter account of the Information and Public Relations department (I&PR) which says “On the occasion of Public Domain Day, the website and social media feeds of I& PR Department are being licensed under Creative Commons which means all content on the website and social media accounts are now free for public usage. That includes photographs, videos, government publications and much more. This is in continuation with State Government’s principles of Teamwork, Transparency & Technology for bringing about Transformation.”

The two departments announced by the state Government to be the part of the collaboration are Information and Public Relations department; that informs the public on the plans, policies and Programmes of the Government. The I&PR department also publishes 2 state magazines, Utkala Prasanga, a state magazine published in Odia language and Odisha Review, a 72 years old state magazine published in English language. Also the ST&SC Development department; which works for the welfare of the backward and minority communities in Odisha. This department holds a major source of information in the form of Adivasi journal and research papers on Indigenous community of Odisha from its Research and Training institute. Most importantly, the social media accounts along with the websites are released under the Creative Commons license. Social media channels are updated on a daily basis and provides fresh content everyday about different collaborations of the Government.

In near future, the Government of Odisha is also planning to release content of some major departments under open license for people to access the information for free.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/government-of-odisha-adopting-creative-commons-license-to-promote-transparency-and-access-to-knowledge

Government Intervention in the Marketplace: Policies for Access or Politics? (Interviews with Semiconductor Industry – Part 4)

maggie — 2014-12-26T14:34:26Z

This is the last of a four-part blog series highlighting findings from a small sample of interviews with fabless semiconductor industry professionals in Taiwan. These industry insiders was approached for the intent of understanding expert knowledge on the process of integrated circuit design. However, the conversations resulted in leanings far beyond that scope. This post explores the tension between market forces and governmental intervention in providing access to mobile technology.

Following conversations regarding the trends and changes in computing usage models, process of chip manufacturing, and challenges with the current patent system, CIS wanted to understand these chip manufacturers' thoughts on the smart phone patent wars' implications on access to mobile technology, and how government regulation and intervention could perhaps resolve some the legal battles.

Although it seems there is an overabundance of litigation and patent wars amongst smartphone manufacturers, most recently culminating in India between manufacturers Xiaomi and Ericcsson,[1] it was of one interviewees' perception that these legal battles was simply a natural result of market forces in the technology industry. Although companies do indeed want to protect their intellectual property, the lawsuits are more often motivated by business interests to slow down ones' competitors. Litigation requires a massive investment in time and resources, and ultimately, the courts are just another avenue where market forces are at play. Naturally, with or without patent wars, prices will go down with competition.

The interviewee provided the example of Microsoft and Intel who had drove the computer industry who were making 75-80% of the products with profits only going to them. But as the market grew, prices slowly went down as more companies came out with new products. This was a "natural, organic development", and "perhaps if the industry had dropped prices earlier it would have been slightly better for consumers", but one interviewee "doubt it would have made much of a difference."

In the past there have been instances where governments have regulated markets to prevent anti-competitive behavior and predatory pricing, as exemplified by the antitrust claim filed against Microsoft in the United States, [2] or Intel being sued by the European Union for monopoly control.[3]

In China, Qualcomm has been under investigation, and is risk of being fined up to 10% of their most recent annual revenues because the government believes they are monopolizing the market. More recently, there have been talks of a possible investigation by the European Union for the same.[4] However, the interviewee expressed his disagreement that these really resolved the problem of high costs.

" Everyone always complained about software costs...that Microsoft was too expensive, that PCs were too high. But then with mobile, for years Microsoft was trying to do Windows... but then Google came along and offered Android for next to nothing. Suddenly the market's changed."

What really resolved the problem of high costs of personal computers according to this interviewee was mobile phones, which merely came with a bit of patience with the market. There seemed to be a general lack of faith in government intervention, and a sentiment that government imposed an overly top-down management of the industry.

Another example given of poor government intervention was the Aakash tablet in India, which one interviewee noted was a "disaster" because the government initially announced a retail price of USD $60 without accurately taking into actual costs of production. Having been considered as one of the potential suppliers for the tablet, this interviewee noted a later announcement of a retail price of USD $28, which taking into account the physical cost of hardware would have been impossible to manufacture. The interviewees' company was requested to reduce their prices given an anticipated high stock order, but ultimately the partnership never went through as it would have resulted in a significant loss.

Initially the Aakash tablet was conceived to be 'made-in-India', but our interviewee cited a bit of "naivety" on behalf of the government. At a meeting with the Aakash planners, he explained how the manufacturing of each part - the screen, motherboard, small connectors, supply busts - required billions of dollars in infrastructural investment.

"Suddenly you're not talking about one factory, you're talking about 30 factories. It's just not going to work. It's too complex. And this is why Shenzhen is going to do very well in the next 10 years. Because they have done this."

Given the Pervasive Technologies project covers the territories of China and India, and attempts to evaluate potential policy levers to enhance access for both geographies, this was a useful insight which led to further questioning about the experiences of working within various jurisdictions. In particular, we were interested in the experiences of these companies operating in different geographic markets, and asked specifically about comparative experiences between the United States and Europe which generally has more stringent enforcement, with our countries of focus - India and China.

One of the interviewed companies which provided turnkey chip set solutions explained how their reputation in China had evolved since the ease of use facilitated the manufacturing of counterfeit products, particularly at a time when the Chinese government did not seem to care too much about infringement. Although there has been increased enforcement measures, these company's products are still often found in gray markets and in shanzhai technology through unauthorized resellers despite not knowingly selling chip sets to illegal companies.

Another interviewee perceived that the Chinese and Taiwanese market required much more effort in general for foreign companies to operate in due to lack of transparency and multilingual access, compared with the North American and European market. The indigenous standards China is pushing, like the TD-SDCMA standard within the telecom industry, one interviewee noted that it puts more of a burden on companies to have multiple standards, and felt it was more so a political demonstration of Chinese power.Other analyses cite this as a strategic method to set these standards for enhancing development of local research and development, and use indigenous standards as a bargaining tool to reduce royalty rates. ⁹

Regardless of the motives, another interviewee noted that the Chinese market was big enough with opportunities worth pursuing that developing products according to China's standards made sense as a business.Following the market means pursuing demand, and according to this interviewee, although China requires a bit more investment, it is justified if it is what customers are asking for.

Despite increased foreign investment in the Chinese manufacturing sector, local smartphone manufacturers from China like Lenovo, Huawei, ZTE, and Xiaomi provide smartphones at an extremely affordable cost - for USD $50-60, or about RMB 300-400. Other marketplaces like Taobao also sell cheap smartphones in the mass market. There are difficulties of operating in India due to lack of reliable infrastructural support, which results in a need for increased investment and risk. However, a development of indigenous Indian tech industry can be done, perhaps developing the hardware first in China, setting up some local manufacturing while focusing on software development in the meantime.

This small sample of interviewees seemed to express a general perception that less governmental regulation and intervention in the technology industry was better for access. However, it can be reasonably well-argued that the reason China's mobile market is so successful is due to government-imposed standards which prevented reliance on expensive foreign patents. After explaining in brief the proposal of a compulsory licensed patent pool for standard essential patents, the interviewees responded that it may be something the government is trying to do with good intentions, but could have unintended side effects.

When asked for suggestions on how policy makers could help facilitate access to technology and an overall more innovative market space, answers included increased hardware education through encouraging openness for more sharing and learning within the industry, and outside to hackers and makers which could encourage 'outsourced research and development'. Although other interviewees seemed to disagree that openness would encourage access, the overriding consensus was the need for policy makers to prevent the possibility of behaviour like patent trolling and the unnecessary protection and locking up of innovative technologies from arising in the first place - done via a global standardized restructuring of the patent system.

[1]. http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/mobile-tabs/xiaomi-vs-ericsson-vs-oneplus-vs-micromax-the-winter-of-smartphone-court-battles/

[2].https://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/United_States_Microsoft_antitrust_case.html

[3]. http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2014-06/cp140082en.pdf

[4]. http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2014/08/29/possible-eu-investigation-add-to-qualcomms-regulatory-problems/

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/interviews-with-semiconductor-industry-part-4

Governance in the Age of the Internet and Free Trade Agreements

praskrishna — 2013-07-03T05:04:39Z

Sunil Abraham was a speaker at this event organized by Thai Netizen Network on June 8, 2013 at Queen Sirikit National Convention Center. The Ministry of Information and Communication and the National Science and Technology Development Agency were co-hosts for the event.

Click to read the details of the event published on Internet Society website

In the age of accelerated international trade and the promotion of free flowing cross-border data transactions, countries and regions are working towards forming a commonly agreed modus operandi and protocols. These protocols seek to facilitate the growth of e-trade, ensure a secure data flow(economic transactions) and protection of its data in the network. In the recent, there has been strong attention by consumers and businesses with the growing scope and content of these agreements addressing Intellectual Property (IP). Emerging trend studies show that there is a growing practices to incorporate mutually exclusive arrangements without involving other stakeholders which happens in closed door negotiations i.e. government to government.

For instance, the European’s Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) proposal and the U.S. Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP).

The bigger concern raised by other stakeholders has been the secrecy of these arrangements and the insufficient protection of consumers and citizens rights in its consideration. So far, the lack of legitimacy and proportionality of legal policy measures has created unintended consequences and collateral damages in far reaching manners whether socially, economically or technologically. Citing practices of filtering technology, deep packet inspection, and Internet cut-off, are introduced by internet service providers to meet legal requirements. Activities in question may vary from country to country, some focus on violations of intellectual property, some on the control of political voices.

Notably, list of concerns have been raised explicitly by UN Special Rapporteur to adhere to the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression were recommended.

This workshop is aim to create discussion on the related topics among stakeholders both in Thailand and in the region of the direct and indirect implications of various developments.

Target: Regulators, consumer rights, human rights activities, Lawyers

Expected Outcomes

Understanding the dynamics of free trade agreements (i.e. APEC, TPP, and ACTA) and its implications on Internet regulations, national sovereignty, and civil rights from various perspectives. (Big picture)
Basic understanding of how various policy and technology related measures or solutions (i.e. digital rights management technology and deep-packet inspection) are used to address Intellectual Property (IP) and how it directly impacts freedom of expression and individual privacy.
Looking Ahead: The developments and upcoming legislations/regulation challenges in both Thailand and the region i.e. new draft of Computer-related Crime Act, new draft of Copyright Act, and the Personal Data Protection Bill.

Panelists

Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore
Konstantinos Komaitis, Policy Advisor, Internet Society, Geneva
Nakorn Serirak, Policy Advisor, Thai Netizen Network, Bangkok
Sawatree Suksri, Lecturer, Faculty of Law, Thammasat University, Bangkok
Lokman Tsui, Policy Advisor, Google Asia Pacific, Hong Kong

Moderator

Mike Hayes, Chair, International MA Program in Human Rights, Mahidol University

Click the PDFs below to download the full details and the presentation:

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/inet-bangkok-june-8-2013-governance-in-the-age-of-internet-and-fta

Google-translated Telugu articles prioritisation exercise: January iteration

Pavan Santhosh — 2017-04-15T17:47:50Z

The January iteration of the Google-translated Telugu articles prioritisation exercise took place online.

The Google-translated Telugu articles prioritization is an online exercise intended to prioritize and improve over 1,900 machine-translated articles on Telugu Wikipedia. This project began from 2009- 2011 when Google translation project took place on Telugu Wikipedia in several rounds. Jointly organised by the Telugu Wikipedia community and CIS-A2K, this exercise saw the participation of 1 female Wikipedian and 4 male Wikipedians.

12 machine translated articles were improved and 39 have been deleted due to their poor quality. In addition to this, 42 articles have been prioritised for further improvement. Says Telugu Wikipedian User:Meena gayathri.s, "people who wanted to improve Google-translated article waited [for a] long time to get a priority list of articles to be improved and in that aspect, this exercise is very useful."

Several such iterations are planned for the coming months. The meta page for the event can be found here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/google-translated-telugu-articles-prioritisation-exercise-january-iteration

Google-translated Telugu articles prioritisation exercise: February iteration

Pavan Santhosh — 2017-04-18T05:02:13Z

The February iteration of the Google-translated Telugu articles prioritisation exercise took place online.

The Google-translated Telugu articles prioritization is an online exercise intended to prioritize and improve over 1,900 machine-translated articles on Telugu Wikipedia. This project was initiated in 2009 when Google translation project took place on Telugu Wikipedia in several rounds. Jointly organised by the Telugu Wikipedia community and CIS-A2K, this exercise saw the participation of 2 Wikipedians.

47 out of 116 articles have been prioritised for further improvement. Says Telugu Wikipedian User:Meena gayathri.s, "I improved Machine translated articles earlier and my major problem is whether my contribution is being channelled properly or not. I always used to think if we can have a list of articles that separates articles that needed to be improved from that of deleted; it will help a lot in this heavy task. This exercise is helping in the same aspect and that is why I'm contributing to this in every iteration."

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/google-translated-telugu-articles-prioritisation-exercise-february-iteration

Google's Optical Character Recognition Software Now Works with All South Asian Languages

subha — 2015-09-26T14:31:15Z

The Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software by Google now works for more than 248 world languages, including all the major South Asian languages, and it's easy to use and works with over 90 percent accuracy for most languages.

This was published by Global Voices on August 29, 2015.

OCR software has been extremely beneficial for the study of language, helping to extract text from images of virtually any printed text—and sometimes even handwriting, which opens the door to old texts, manuscripts, and more.

Ketan Pratap at NDTV Gadgets writes:

Users can start using the OCR capabilities in Drive by uploading scanned document in PDF or image form after which they can right-click on the document in Drive to open with Google Docs. After choosing the option, a document with the original image alongside extracted text opens, which can be edited. Google notes that users will not be required to specify the language of the document as the OCR in Drive will automatically determine it. The OCR capability in Google Drive is also available in Drive for Android.

On Twitter, many users have welcomed and even celebrated this new feature from Google:

Optical Character Recognition #OCR in Google Drive recongnizes many indic languages including #Kannada give it a try http://t.co/99UkCJQ6gb

— Omshivaprakash (@omshivaprakash) August 28, 2015

@shylobisnett if you have access to a scanner, you can do OCR through google drive. works a bit faster.

— Whet Moser (@whet) August 27, 2015

Wow. Searching Google Drive for a keyword also returns results for images containing that keyword in the image. Didn't realise it did OCR.

— Mark Osborne (@mosborne01) August 25, 2015

Typically OCR software has difficulty reading the text on old documents or pages with blemishes and ink marks, spitting out gibberish instead of legible text.

Google's support page on this project shares additional details about character formatting, like its ability to preserve bold and italicized fonts in the output text:

When processing your document, we attempt to preserve basic text formatting such as bold and italic text, font size and type, and line breaks. However, detecting these elements is difficult and we may not always succeed. Other text formatting and structuring elements such as bulleted and numbered lists, tables, text columns, and footnotes or endnotes are likely to get lost.

For some of the languages, like Malayalam and Tamil, the OCR works with almost 100 percent accuracy, and includes support for formatting things like like auto-cropping, separating text by discarding images, and ignoring color backgrounds, explains Tamil user and Wikimedian Ravishankar Ayyakkannu on Facebook:

[…] Google Tamil OCR works with 100% accuracy ! Keep testing with various samples and comment here. Performance has been the same for many other Indic languages too. […] Auto crops, discards images and colored background. Recognizes different layouts. I could find only 1 mistake in whole page. Testing latest Vikatan – https://docs.google.com/…/1OXre4…/edit.. […]

(Bangla, Malayalam, Kannada, Odia, Tamil, and Telugu-language users have commented in the same post with feedback after testing the updated OCR software. For a few scripts, like Gurmukhi (used to write Punjabi), it turns out that the output after OCR is quite poor, resulting largely in gibberish, when testing a screenshot image from Punjabi Wikipedia.)


Issues with Gurmukhi script after OCR using Google's OCR. Screenshot from Punjabi Wikipedia.

This is quite a large leap for the languages with lots of old texts that are not yet digitized. Old and valuable texts in many languages could now be digitized and shared over the internet using platforms like Wikisource and could be preserved and made available for sharing knowledge.

Google's OCR partly uses Tesseract—an OCR engine released as freeware. Developed as a community project between 1995 and 2006 (and later taken over by Google), Tesseract is considered to be one of the world's most accurate OCR engines and works for over 60 languages. The source code is now hosted at https://github.com/tesseract-ocr. Check this link for the OCR outputs in various South Asian scripts.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/googles-optical-character-recognition-software-now-works-with-all-south-asian-languages

Google Policy Fellowship Programme: Call for Applications

praskrishna — 2012-05-24T15:38:28Z

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) is inviting applications for the Google Policy Fellowship programme. Google is providing a USD 7,500 stipend to the India Fellow, who will be selected by August 15, 2012.

The Google Policy Fellowship offers successful candidates an opportunity to develop research and debate on the fellowship focus areas, which include Access to Knowledge, Openness in India, Freedom of Expression, Privacy, and Telecom, for a period of about ten weeks starting from August 2012 upto October 2012. CIS will select the India Fellow. Send in your applications for the position by June 27, 2012.

To apply, please send to google.fellowship@cis-india.org the following materials:

Statement of Purpose: A brief write-up outlining about your interest and qualifications for the programme including the relevant academic, professional and extracurricular experiences. As part of the write-up, also explain on what you hope to gain from participation in the programme and what research work concerning free expression online you would like to further through this programme. (About 1200 words max).
Resume
Three references

Fellowship Focus Areas

Access to Knowledge: Studies looking at access to knowledge issues in India in light of copyright law, consumers law, parallel imports and the interplay between pervasive technologies and intellectual property rights, targeted at policymakers, Members of Parliament, publishers, photographers, filmmakers, etc.
Openness in India: Studies with policy recommendations on open access to scholarly literature, free access to law, open content, open standards, free and open source software, aimed at policymakers, policy researchers, academics and the general public.
Freedom of Expression: Studies on policy, regulatory and legislative issues concerning censorship and freedom of speech and expression online, aimed at bloggers, journalists, authors and the general public.
Privacy: Studies on privacy issues like data protection and the right to information, limits to privacy in light of the provisions of the constitution, media norms and privacy, banking and financial privacy, workplace privacy, privacy and wire-tapping, e-governance and privacy, medical privacy, consumer privacy, etc., aimed at policymakers and the public.
Telecom: Building awareness and capacity on telecommunication policy in India for researchers and academicians, policymakers and regulators, consumer and civil society organisations, education and library institutions and lay persons through the creation of a dedicated web based resource focusing on knowledge dissemination.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Google Policy Fellowship program?
The Google Policy Fellowship program offers students interested in Internet and technology related policy issues with an opportunity to spend their summer working on these issues at the Centre for Internet and Society at Bangalore. Students will work for a period of ten weeks starting from July 2012. The research agenda for the program is based on legal and policy frameworks in the region connected to the ground-level perceptions of the fellowship focus areas mentioned above.

I am an International student can I apply and participate in the program? Are there any age restrictions on participating?
Yes. You must be 18 years of age or older by January 1, 2012 to be eligible to participate in Google Policy Fellowship program in 2012.

Are there citizenship requirements for the Fellowship?
For the time being, we are only accepting students eligible to work in India (e.g. Indian citizens, permanent residents of India, and individuals presently holding an Indian student visa. Google cannot provide guidance or assistance on obtaining the necessary documentation to meet the criteria.

Who is eligible to participate as a student in Google Policy Fellowship program?
In order to participate in the program, you must be a student. Google defines a student as an individual enrolled in or accepted into an accredited institution including (but not necessarily limited to) colleges, universities, masters programs, PhD programs and undergraduate programs. Eligibility is based on enrollment in an accredited university by January 1, 2012.

I am an International student can I apply and participate in the program?
In order to participate in the program, you must be a student (see Google's definition of a student above). You must also be eligible to work in India (see section on citizen requirements for fellowship above). Google cannot provide guidance or assistance on obtaining the necessary documentation to meet this criterion.
I have been accepted into an accredited post-secondary school program, but have not yet begun attending. Can I still take part in the program?
As long as you are enrolled in a college or university program as of January 1, 2012, you are eligible to participate in the program.
I graduate in the middle of the program. Can I still participate?
As long as you are enrolled in a college or university program as of January 1, 2012, you are eligible to participate in the program.

Payments, Forms, and Other Administrative Stuff

How do payments work?*

Google will provide a stipend of USD 7,500 equivalent to each Fellow for the summer.

Accepted students in good standing with their host organization will receive a USD 2,500 stipend payable shortly after they begin the Fellowship in August 2012.
Students who receive passing mid-term evaluations by their host organization will receive a USD 1,500 stipend shortly after the mid-term evaluation in September 2012.
Students who receive passing final evaluations by their host organization and who have submitted their final program evaluations will receive a USD 3,500 stipend shortly after final evaluations in October 2012.

Please note: Payments will be made by electronic bank transfer, and are contingent upon satisfactory evaluations by the host organization, completion of all required enrollment and other forms. Fellows are responsible for payment of any taxes associated with their receipt of the Fellowship stipend.

*While the three step payment structure given here corresponds to the one in the United States, disbursement of the amount may be altered as felt necessary.

What documentation is required from students?

Students should be prepared, upon request, to provide Google or the host organization with transcripts from their accredited institution as proof of enrollment or admission status. Transcripts do not need to be official (photo copy of original will be sufficient).

I would like to use the work I did for my Google Policy Fellowship to obtain course credit from my university. Is this acceptable?

Yes. If you need documentation from Google to provide to your school for course credit, you can contact Google. We will not provide documentation until we have received a final evaluation from your mentoring organization.

Host Organizations

What is Google's relationship with the Centre for Internet and Society?

Google provides the funding and administrative support for individual fellows directly. Google and the Centre for Internet and Society are not partners or affiliates. The Centre for Internet and Society does not represent the views or opinions of Google and cannot bind Google legally.

Important Dates

What is the program timeline?

June 27, 2012	Student Application Deadline. Applications must be received by midnight.
July 18, 2012	Student applicants are notified of the status of their applications.
August 2012	Students begin their fellowship with the host organization (start date to be determined by students and the host organization); Google issues initial student stipends.
September 2012	Mid-term evaluations; Google issues mid-term stipends.
October 2012	Final evaluations; Google issues final stipends.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/google-policy-fellowship