How Are Colleges Working to Protect Copyright, Patent on Student Creations
As innovation due to the rapidly advancing technology increasingly becomes core to the college education, campuses are stepping ahead to protect the Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) of their students. Intended to help students identify their Intellectual Property (IP) while respecting others’ IP, they are setting up dedicated IPR cells to streamline paperwork, offer legal counseling, etc. With these efforts by campuses, the students can now apply for and obtain copyrights and patents for almost everything. No matter whether it is a product, an image, or a simple text, a student can secure the same. The only condition is that the project and product should be new and unique. The copyright or patent is owned by both the student and the institute. Here, the college plays the role of an applicant, and the student is the inventor. So, the inventorship credit goes to the student. IPR cells aid students to promote their work. And, it further helps the students in the commercialization of their products, ideas, etc., by attracting potential buyers.
Plugging the Gaps It is due to the lack of separate Intellectual Property Law (IP Law) for universities that the campuses are working on their own policies. Indeed, the colleges are doing so while keeping in mind the objectives and privileges of the National IPR Policy adopted by the Indian government in 2016. According to the IPR Law in