IIT Kharagpur to have school of intellectual property rights

From July 2006, IIT Kharagpur will start an institution focused exclusively on intellectual and technological intellectual property laws. To be named after the late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, the project has been approved by the centre, which has cleared the usage of the late PM's name for the institute.

This was disclosed by S K Dubey, director, IIT Kharagpur, on the sidelines of an international conference on advanced materials design and development, organised jointly by IIT Kharagpur and the US-based Georgia Tech.

One of the objectives of the proposed new institute would be to produce 'technological lawyers' to handle intellectual property right on technologies.

"Since we lack IP focus, we tend to lose many things, only because we don't know how to protect them," said Dubey. "We feel that the technologists should be aware of IP laws."

The idea of the school was conceived in the wake of new patent laws, developing technologies and international laws.