MoU Signed Between Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University Hyderabad And CII To Create IP Eco-System university.

5th June, 2019 - 10:37 am Categories: Legal Issues 0 Comments

INTRODUCTION

Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University Hyderabad and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to create IP eco-system of the university.

The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) works to create and sustain an environment conducive to the development of India, partnering industry, Government, and civil society. CII is a non-government, not-for-profit, industry-led and industry-managed organization, playing a proactive role in India’s development process.

Extending its agenda beyond business, CII aims to initiate development process across diverse domains including affirmative action, healthcare, education, livelihood, diversity management, skill development, empowerment of women, and water, to name a few.

The objective of this MOU is to build successful partnerships between academia and industry and to achieve this, MOU between CII and Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University Hyderabad was made.

 Highlighting the objectives of the MoU, Mr. V Rajanna emphasized that ‘MoU will facilitate regular interaction between the industry & academia and promote the culture of technology product development by enabling ideation and experimentation.’[1]

This means that by the connecting industry with academics, the culture of formation of ideas for technology development has to be instilled in the students. To achieve this there would be establishment of innovation labs. Students would be given challenges to pursue Industry relevant problems through which they would be mentored towards innovation.

Another objective of CII is to start Faculty Development Programs on the newer technologies so that the faculty is well trained.

The other objective is to recommend relevant technologies, trends, and course content to support self-learning for tech product development and startups.

So it’s observed that this collaboration aims to instil practical use of students’ knowledge for innovation. This would also promote entrepreneurship skills amongst these students.

According to the Vice-Chancellor of the University ‘in its endeavour to improve quality and relevance of engineering graduates, it is launching University wide R&D and Innovation initiative called J-Hub. The MoU would help Researchers and engineering graduates work on Industry relevant products and applied research in problems of Industry and societal relevance.’[1]

So the main aim of this MOU is to use the skills which the engineering students learn in innovation which would help in the development of the industry and in using technology for solving problems of the nation.

Now let’s take a look at the developmental plan under the MOU.

The developmental plan under the MOU covers the establishment of a satellite office of CII- IPR Cell on the campus itself. It will serve as a single window for IP related queries of faculty and will promote innovation among students through advisory, awareness, counselling and commercialisation. The collaboration further facilitates IP clinics where students and faculty can talk to experts and seek their guidance in the field of IP Protection and product commercialisation.

Speaking on the occasion, Prof Reddy said the university was taking all necessary steps to promote innovation culture and the MoU would help faculty and students on the IP aspect of product development and industry collaboration. “The newly set up office will create strong and conducive IP eco system by way of IP clinics, counseling, search and filing of IP to protect faculty and student innovations,” he said.

Singh said the MoU would facilitate regular interaction between the industry and academia beside helps in creating awareness on IPR and added, “It will also provide a platform for sharing best practices in IP Management and help fostering IP based innovations”.[1]

So, first promotion of innovation among students is done and then they are also taught how to protect their inventions through their IP management.

The important points which could be gathered from this MOU are-

Promoting development of technology through innovation

enhancing the quality of engineering education

facilitating IP search and IP filing.

promoting innovation culture

creating awareness on IPR

creating best practices in IP Management and help fostering IP based innovations

CONCLUSION

To conclude we can say that the Memorandum of understanding between Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University Hyderabad and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) is a great step to promote inventions and innovations among the students, and it stops not there only, but also educates students how to protect their inventions through Intellectual property law. This MOU promotes a culture of technology development and innovation among students which in turn would develop their entrepreneurship ability. The MOU not only focusses on students but also the teachers through faculty development programs where the teachers would get to know about the new technologies. Further the IP clinics would further promote this, where both students and teachers can talk to experts in this field. All this would promote to development of innovative nature among students as now they would know how to lawfully protect their creations/inventions. All these would lead to scientific and technological development, thus leading to development of the nation. CII is definitely taking a great step to achieve its objectives to initiate development process across diverse domains which includes education and skill development, which are both related.

Author: Purnashri Das, intern at Khurana & Khurana, Advocates and IP Attorneys. In case of any queries please contact/write back to us at swapnil@khuranaandkhurana.com

References:

[2] JNTU-Hyderabad, CII Telangana Inks Pact,sakunth kumar, February 15, 2019, College Dekho, https://www.collegedekho.com/news/jntu-hyderabad-cii-telangana-mou-to-promote-innovation-11324/, accessed on 3^rd June 2019