Andhra University aims to train 1L students on IPR in 5 years

Visakhapatnam Andhra University, one of the premier institutes of learning in India, has set an ambitious plan to train one lakh students on Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and file 1,000 patents in the next five years.

The university which has taken a path-breaking initiative to make IPR part of its syllabus in various courses and encourage startups getting incubated at A-hub, a centralised place where youngsters are being mentored to commercialise their creativity, recently achieved a record of sorts by filing 119 patent applications.

The university has published four patents in 2017-18 and three in 2018-19 and another three in 2019-20. The real momentum for filing and publishing patents from the university came from 2020-21 after the DPIIT-IPR Chair Centre for IPR was established and University IP Policy was unveiled by the AP State Council of Higher Education (APSCHE) Chairman.

Prof Hanumanthu Purushotham the DPIIT-IPR Chair Professor and Head of Centre for IPR told Bizz Buzz on Monday that they are firm on introducing 10 IPR certificate courses and faculty development programs and undertake at least two consultancy/sponsored projects, laying foundation for setting up School of IPR and extending support to Andhra Pradesh Government to position the State among the top three in patent/IP rankings. He said, “As the DPIIT-IPR chair at AU, I am contributing my bit of energy to the best of my ability for enhancing AP’s and India’s innovation index ranking by taking up a spectrum of activities within the national IPR policy framework.”

AU envisioned the importance of IPR in academia and has initiated several innovative academic programs such as teaching IPR as a mandatory value added credit course to about 10,000 students at UG and PG level, launching University IP Policy, organising various awareness programs and workshops on IPR creating a buzz in the university IP and innovation ecosystem. Out of 119 patent applications filed so far, about 70 per cent of patents are filed by male and 30 per cent were by female researchers and faculty.