Noting India’s National IP Policy’s commitment to raise IP awareness, particularly in the industrial designs space, UK IPO and CII have undertaken to reach out to Indian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), start-ups and researchers through 4 regional designs seminars around India. This was the second one, the other three being in Hyderabad, Kolkata and Pune.
Dr. KS Kardam, Head of the Delhi Patent Office, opened the seminar and observed that design protection is an effective way to secure the IP rights of any product having an aesthetic look and feel, but public awareness about its utility is lacking. As UK IPO’s representative, I joined him in the inauguration and brought forth statistics to explain the positive role designs have played in UK’s growth story. For instance, 11% of the investments in intangible assets in 2014 in the UK were over assets protected by designs- which amounts to GBP 14.5 billion. What is interesting is that whereas the investment amounted 0.8% of UK’s GDP in 2014, design intensive industries contributed to 11.5% of UK’s GDP, so the return was several times greater. Moreover, the designs industry created 2.6 million jobs for the UK between 2011-13.
These observations highlighted the role industrial designs can play as a driver for growth.
The seminar also saw industry experts talk about strategising industrial design protection in product development and R&D, and design enforcement.