NIPAM is a flagship program launched as a part of “Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav” celebrations. It kicked off on the 8th of December, 2021 with a mission to provide awareness to 1 million students by 15th August 2022.
This mission turned out to be successful and achieved its target by 31st of July which is well before its deadline.
As per the IP INDIA website, this program will continue and will become an ongoing flagship program of the Intellectual Property Office of India.
Its slogan underlines its objective clearly which is “Creative India; Innovative India ”.
Update: Opportunity (Now Any IP Professionals Can Conduct NIPAM Awareness Sessions)
As per the public notice dated 01/03/2023, titled “Opportunity to join hands with NIPAM Initiative of IP Office”, all IP Facilitators, IP Mitra, IP Practitioners, and Corporate IP Officials can conduct NIPAM sessions.
The notice states the objective of the mission to achieve the following objectives by imparting training at academic institutions / industrial groups / SME-Startups:
• To inculcate the spirit of creativity and innovation, spreading IP Awareness
• To encourage the protection of the IP
• To encourage for respecting the IP and its fair use
The O/o CGPDTM has asked IP professionals to volunteer their time for carrying out and strengthening NIPAM activities.
IP experts and practitioners are the backbone of the IP ecosystem in the country and have benefited from it. It’s time that we contribute towards a strengthened IP regime for the next generation and our society.
CGPDTM requests the IP community to increase NIPAM’s reach, disseminate knowledge on intellectual property rights, and groom the practical skills and expertise of future researchers, creators, and inventors to sensitize them about IPR.
If you are willing to give your valuable time in the voluntary drive of NIPAM then you may do by registering at the following link.
You will be asked to fill up the google form and then can join an official group for IP Professionals for NIPAM.
Who is implementing this mission?
It was the Hon’ble Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Shri Piyush Goyal who assigned the Intellectual Property Office to generate awareness among one million students in the country.
As a result, NIPAM is being implemented by the Intellectual Property Office, the Office of Controller General of Patents, Designs and TradeMarks (CGPDTM), Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
Geographical Area covered by the Program
NIPAM is a PAN India program. Its coverage includes 28 states & 7 Union Territories.
There are 4 patent offices covering their jurisdictions. Thus, it ensured the coverage of the whole of India.
In addition to the 4 patent offices, RGNIIPM is also involved in this mission. RGNIIPM (Rajiv Gandhi National Intellectual Property Management ) is the training center of the patent office situated in Nagpur.
Who’s Who In The Mission:
The mission has effectively achieved its target. It’s the result of seamless coordination between authorities.
How an organization behaves internally is reflected in its working output.
The organizational structure of the mission was decided as shown in the picture below:
Mode of The Outreach
Effect of the pandemic was visible in the mode of operation of this mission. The mode of conducting awareness sessions was both online and offline.
Outreach was ensured in such a way that, awareness sessions reached every corner of the country from Andaman & Nicobar Islands to Ladakh, Dadra, and Nagar Haveli to Arunachal Pradesh.
Who’s The Target Audience of The NIPAM
It started with the aim of generating IP awareness among one million students in the country.
This mission covers students from schools, colleges, universities, and institutes in the country.
Further, students have been divided into two levels.
Level A: Schools (Students from class 9th to 12th)
Level B: Universities/ Colleges
Students are the future of the country. Therefore, it is important to inculcate innovative aptitude in them.
The government of India is focusing on innovation through various initiatives and therefore, it’s equally important to make the public aware of ways to protect their innovation rights.
How To Register For A NIPAM Session
There are two ways awareness sessions can be scheduled.
1. If you want to conduct an awareness session in your school/ college, you can register on the official website requesting a session.
Schools can register here. You will find the following form as shown in the image below:
College/ Universities can register here. You will find the following form as shown in the image below:
2. Second way of conducting a session is that authorities themselves reach out to your school/ college. In this case, you can coordinate with them and schedule a session.
NIPAM Certificate
Participants in the awareness session get certificates. NIPAM training certificate indicates that you have some idea about IPR and know some basics.
If the session interests you then you may also further pursue IPR courses offered by various institutes.
There is a tendency in our educational institutes to not file patents. Even if the projects are successful or a solution has been found to a problem, the practice is to publish papers and not proceed with a patent application for the solution of the problem.
So, in addition to the certificate, this awareness session aims to generate awareness in our students so as to create a robust IP ecosystem in India just like in developed countries.
Similar to the NIPAM mission, KAPILA scheme of the government of India is also creating awareness in the field of IP.
What is KAPILA program?
It is the “Kalam Program for IP Literacy and Awareness (KAPILA)” launched by the Ministry of Education’s Innovation Cell (MIC), in collaboration with the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).
The objective of KAPILA program:
As per the PIB press release, the objective of this program include:
- creating awareness regarding Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs),
- enabling IP protection of inventions originating from faculty and students of HEIs,
- development of Credit Course on IPR,
- training program on IPR for faculty and students of HEIs and sensitization and development of a vibrant IP filing system.
KAPILA program currently is carrying out the following functions:
1. IPR Awareness
Under this, the KAPILA program strives to recognize, facilitate and felicitate innovation, IP, and best practices. Some of this part of the KAPILA program overlaps with the NIPAM mission.
2. Funding Assistance
In this aspect, KAPILA program is different than NIPAM. Under NIPAM there is no provision of financial assistance, however, in KAPILA, Institutes can claim reimbursement for the expenditure that happened in filing a patent application.
For each application, up to 5600 INR can be claimed for reimbursement. That is so because, after the fee reduction for educational institutes following is the cost of filing a patent application by an education institution:
| Patent application filing fee | Rs. 1600 /- |
| Request for examination fee | Rs. 4000 /- |
| Total per patent application | Rs. 5600 /- |
Under this program, one institute can get a refund for half of the patent applications which it has filed.
The maximum number of patent applications that can be refunded for an institute under this program is capped at 10.
For example, if an educational institute has filed either 20 or 25 patent applications, Only 10 applications will be considered for refund in both cases.
Therefore, the maximum refund one institute can get is INR 56,000.
Under this program, many outcomes are expected. However, one notable outcome among others is that per year, at least 10,000 patent applications are expected to be filed.
As an educational institute, if you want to register, you can do so here.
3. IPR Courses
This program tries to develop courses to cater to the requirements of students at UG, PG and Ph.D level. Courses offered are “Introduction to Intellectual Property” at the UG level, “Foundation of Intellectual Property” at the PG level, and “Intellectual Property and Innovation” at the Ph.D. level.
Freedom is given to institutes and universities to cover the breadth and depth of the subject.
4. Economy by Patents
This program tries to push verticals where the economy driven by patents is enabled.
User guide about this program can be found here for further understanding of the program.
What is CIPAM
It is a dedicated cell for IPR promotion and management (CIPAM). It is a professional body under the aegis of DPIIT (Department of Industry and Internal Trade).
One of the main functions of CIPAM is IP awareness across schools, universities, industry, police, and judiciary.
Other functions of CIPAM include working on IP policy-related matters, coordinating among various organizations in matters of IP, and looking into matters related to the commercialization of IP.
NIPAM 2.0
So far, we’ve seen every facet of the NIPAM program. It was supposed to end on August 15, 2022, because it had already met its goal.
However, based on the program’s success, the government of India has decided to continue it. So, we now have the NIPAM 2.0 program, which can benefit us all.
When we looked at the NIPAM website, we noticed that NIPAM 2.0 had all of the hallmarks of NIPAM. However, one thing we noticed is that it is now open to all school classes.
In NIPAM2.0, the scope of the program has expanded compared to its previous version. In its new Avtar, this initiative not only covers students from 6th class onwards but also covers institutions like Atal Tinkering Labs (ATLs), Atal Incubation Centers (AICs), Organizations, etc.
Moreover, awareness sessions are also being conducted under NIPAM-TIFAC programs.
TIFAC (Technology information, forecasting and assessment council) was established in 1988 under the Department of Science & Technology by Government of India.
Since 1995, TIFAC runs its Patent Facilitation Centre (PFC) to create awareness about intellectual property rights (IPR) in the country.
Since the objectives of PFC-TIFAC overlaps with NIPAM, both have come together to create an IP ecosystem in the country by taking IP awareness to the grassroots level on a much bigger scale.
If you want to request an awareness session under NIPAM-TIFAC program then you can do so by registering on this link. Before that, make sure that you have TIFAC coordinator details.
Similarly, you need to have ATL & AIC registration numbers to be able to register for a NIPAM session.
You can access the link to request here.
Similar to its previous version, in NIPAM2.0, certificates are being provided for the participating individuals certifying that they know something about IPR in general and in India.
Some of the Activities of PFC-TIFAC are:
1. IPR awareness in institutions,
2. Facilitate the protection of inventions coming out of academia, R&D institutions and government agencies,
3. Training programs for scientists and technologists in India and outside,
4. Setting up Patent Information Centers (PICs) across states of India,
5. GI registration involving PICs,
6. Set up IPR cell in Universities to assist in IPR matters like patent searches, IP audit of universities and facilitating patenting,
7. Running the Women Scientists Scheme (WOS-C) to encourage for innovation,
8. Collaboration with institutions abroad,
9. Database of Indian Patents,
10. IPR bulletin,
11. IPR support to various government ministries and agencies,
12. International training of PFC officials,
13. Providing services like pa
Conclusion
After going through the article, the objective of the government is clear to us and that is “To develop a robust IP ecosystem in the country”.
It appears that decision-makers in the government have a consensus that the way forward to the development of the country goes through innovation. And to boost innovation, a robust IP system is needed.
The increasing number of patent applications certifies that the efforts of the government are bearing fruit. We as a country have a long way to go when we compare with countries like China, USA, and Japan. However, a seed has been sowed and we hope to see a flourishing tree in the coming time.