The course is scheduled to conclude on September 14. (Representational)

Aiming at the emergence of graduates that are job creators and not seekers by supporting a target of 1,000 student-led innovations per year, that could lead to filing of up to 1,000 Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) from universities in Gujarat every year, the state education department has decided to introduce at least one start-up and IPR course in each university.

The course is to be preceded by an online IPR certificate course for faculty members. Additionally, a dedicated state-level Intellectual Property Facilitation Centre (IPFC) under the Student Start-up and Innovation Hub (i-Hub) has also been set up by the Gujarat education department in order to provide students an IPR support mechanism and effective implementation of IP guidelines. The i-Hub is governed by the Student Start-up and Innovation Policy (SSIP). The state-level facilitation centre will be replicated at each university level while a few state universities have already initiated and set up their IPR facilitation centres.

“Since majority of the innovations die at an early stage due to the lack of awareness and a support system to help innovators protect their intellectual property, the education department has already arranged for capacity building of faculty members regarding start-ups and IPR through an online IPR course which will conclude this month,” said Principal Secretary of Education, Anju Sharma.

Nearly 4,500 faculty members from technical and higher education government and government-funded institutes from across the state are attending this “mandatory” eleven-week, 42-session online IPR certificate course.

“A runway programme in start-up followed by a course on IPR has been chalked out for college students. As each start-up project has a faculty mentor, both students and faculty members will benefit from this online training,” Sharma added.

“With this capacity building of nearly 4,500 faculty members, we are aiming to pass on knowledge to students through this IPR course to be introduced from academic session 2020-’21,” said Director of Higher Education, M Nagarajan, who has also registered for the IPR certificate course.

This online course is being conducted with the help of National Research Development Corporation (NRDC), the Cell for IPR Promotion and Management (CIPAM) under the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) and the AICTE Training and Learning (ATAL) Academy along with the MHRD Innovation Cell.

The course structure will include basics of IPRs, prior art search, patent drafting, national and international patent application and e-filing, patent acts, types of IP, IP commercialisation, IP valuation and technology transfer, among other concepts.

The course is scheduled to conclude on September 14.