A seminar on ‘IP Management’ was organized 29-04-2024 as part of the celebration of World Intellectual Property Day. Dr. S.N. Jha, DDG (Agricultural Engineering), ICAR, New Delhi was the chief guest and delivered the inaugural address. He dwelt upon various aspects of IP management and shared his experiences in managing the IP in his career. He pointed out challenges including strengthening mechanisms for IP protection and enforcement, particularly in farm engineering sector, facilitating technology transfer and licensing agreements, navigating complex regulatory frameworks, and building capacity and awareness among stakeholders. He further said India has a unique IPR framework through PPVFRA which not only protects the rights of plant breeders but also of our farmers.

Dr. K. Balachandra Hebbar, Director, CPCRI chaired the programme and articulated the blooming of India's agricultural sector with innovation and technology. He stated that the country is striving to achieve the 'Viksit' tag by 2047 and CPCRI is in right direction taking the innovations to entrepreneurs and farmers.

Dr. B.D. Prasanna, Associate Dean, National Institute of Technology Karnataka (NITK),Surathkal, delivered an expert talk on IP creation and management and answered the queries raised by the participants. Around 150 participants attended the programme by both online and offline mode. He stressed that when innovators are confident of protection of their rights, they get incentivized to do better and come forward to invest and innovate. His presentation was followed by interactive session in which there is a consensus that strong IP protection is vital for stimulating innovation and investment requiring collaborative research endeavours, partnerships between the public and private sectors.Further, there is a need for a multi-faceted and collaborative approach towards building an effective policy and regulatory framework around IPR involving legal reforms, capacity building, stakeholder engagement and international cooperation to promote innovation to find solutions to the most pressing problems.

Dr. K. Ponnusamy, Head, Division of Social Science was the coordinator of the event.