Strong patent regime to turn India into research hub
Monday, 03 May 2004, 19:30 IST
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NEW DELHI: India can emerge as a global research hub for a vast spectrum of industrial sectors, ranging from biotechnology to information security solutions, by crating a strong intellectual property (IP) regime, says a study. Although research and development outsourcing to India has gone up over the years, particularly in areas like IT, pharmaceuticals, engineering and design services, the gains can be maximised by creating more "original technology," it adds. "The Indian IT industry, despite its strong credentials in both the overseas and domestic markets, has faced one recurring criticism - of not creating enough IP," says a National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom) report. "The paucity of "original technology" from the Indian side has always remained a challenge for players that are making significant strides in other departments of the software and services marketplace," adds the report made available to IANS. The report says that the IP environment in India has to undergo transformation, triggering increased activity in research and development outsourcing. "IP is key for innovation and entrepreneurship and leads to a strengthening of IP laws by the government," said the study, adding it would spur foreign direct investment and lead to a rise in research spending within the domestic market. The Nasscom report said India could reap rich dividend by becoming the outsourcing hub of industry sectors like biotechnology, embedded systems, chip design, and information security if the country create a robust IP regime. The Indian bio-informatics market is expected to exceed $2 billion by 2008, while the market for Indian biotech research and development products and services will rise to around $3 billion by 2010, it said. The research work being outsourced to India in these segments relates to areas such as molecular biology, DNA (di-oxy ribonucleic acid) sequencing, molecular biology software packages, molecular modelling, among others. The embedded systems segment is expected to witness a spurt in research and development outsourcing as well and will account for revenues of around $1.5 billion by 2004-05. "Yet another sunrise sector within the research and development outsourcing domain is the chip design market that is estimated to grow into a $808 million opportunity in India by 2005," said the IT industry lobby group. According to Nasscom, to help Indian companies move towards IP creation in a significant way, the government needs to review its policies every two to three years after taking stock of the progress achieved. "India has a very stringent copyright law and ranks among a handful of nations with a strong cyber law regime. The IP issue is also receiving attention from the academia. "In view of the existing scenario, it can be said that the Indian software and services sector is ripe for IP creation."
Source: IANS
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