Professors accuse industry of ignoring varsity patents
The faculty members of the University of Hyderabad have 17 patents to their names
By : DC Correspondent
Update: 2015-05-02 02:39 GMT
Hyderabad: The faculty members of the University of Hyderabad have 17 patents to their names, some even international ones, and 26 are under process. However, of the 17 granted patents, only four have been picked up for commercialisation and these too are yet to be completely commercialised.
A major reason behind this, as pointed out by senior professors from the university, is the partisan attitude of industries towards universities. They say that while industries show enthusiasm in patents filed at institutes like Indian Institutes of Technology, they do not bother to take notice of the patents filed by other universities. This attitude also extends to collaborating with universities for conducting of research.
Prof. S. Dutta Gupta, coordinator of Patent Cell at UoH, said, “In IITs, nearly 70-80 per cent of funding for pure as well as applied research is provided by industries. Most of the patents are picked up soon for commercialisation. In universities, government is the sole funding source for almost all researches, including those for which patents have been granted or applied for.”
Of the 42 patents applied from UoH, research funding for about 36 has been by the Central government. Another senior professor said, “Universities produce higher number of skilled human resources than IITs and most of them work for the country, unlike IITians but government funding has always been higher for IITs.”
All four patents from UoH which have been taken up for commercialisation belong to Prof. Anand K. Kondapi of Department of Biotechnology. “Indian companies don’t want to invest in discovering new drugs. They want generic drug formulae which do not involve much financial risk and can be brought into production quickly. I approached some reputed Indian drug companies who refused to take up my patented works for further research,” Prof Kondapi said.
Santosh Varalwar, MD and CEO of Vivimed Labs says, “It is not true that Indian companies are not into innovative products or drugs. Spending on R&D has increased in companies from 1-2 per cent a decade ago to 7-8 per cent now. However, it is true that there is a gap in industry-university interface.”
“Industries have been working for over four decades with institutions like IICT, IITs and NCL which have excellent infrastructure, sometimes used even by industries. The gap between research conducted there and what industry wants for commercialisation is also less,” said Mr Varalwar.