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A career in Intellectual Property Rights

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By Dr. Paresh Kumar DaveFounder - IP MomentThe 21st century has made us witness tremendous spurts in a major number of lucrative career options. Along with rapid upgradations and rising demands in the technology sector, another field has managed to earn a spot amongst these that is the Intellectual Property Rights field.IPR or Intellectual Property Rights has grown rapidly in the past few years. The vast changes in innovations and the market globalisations have resulted in changes in how the market players use IP rights.With countries that are becoming hubs of start-upsand research and developments which are nothing but creations of the mind. Intellectual Property has become an exponentially growing sector.

Unemployment is a situation in which able-bodied people who are looking for a job cannot find a job. Lower unemployment rate for any country is a matter of concern for any country’s economic condition. During the time of election year, unemployment rate is becoming more politicizing topic rather than serious subject of debate. Last month, in India we have received unemployment data from various sources, such as household survey data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE); we have the AzimPremji University’s State Of Working India 2018 report; we have monthly data on subscriber additions to the Employees’ Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) and we have more enterprise data coming from the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). In the long run, perhaps all the jobs data will converge to give us meaningful results, but right now, it is only adding to the confusion as all the studies have serious drawbacks. It’s a case of the blind men and the elephant.

What are Intellectual Property Rights?
In terms of the rise in digital technology, and the constant exchange of information, the application has become more of a commonplace phenomenon than any time before in history. The human ingenuity and intellectuality, being an endless and unpredictable lane for creativity and innovation, springs forth numerous ideas and options, which the entire humanity has probably never seen before. But, in terms of the precious creations and inventions by people from any walk in life, there should be specific laws set out, which can oversee them deriving profit every time there is a commercial application of the invention or discovery. To understand Intellectual Property Rights, it is important to understand Intellectual Property. Any idea or innovation can be called as Intellectual property. Literature, artworks, inventions, etc. Are all types of intellectual property,Intellectual Property Rights aim on helping innovators to gain returns for their inventions and investments.

Good Reasons to make a career in IPR
Based on the interviews from people working in the IP industry there a few reasons why you canchoose Intellectual Property as a career option. The IP industry is growing at a tremendous pace in the global market.A major number of jobs such as patent docketing, prior art searching, patent analytics, paralegal,
etc. are being outsourced. The second reason is a good pay scale. On average, a patent engineer can earn up to three hundred thousand rupees annually. Another reason is that a career in the IP industry has rapid growth, with an experience of only a couple of years a professional can expect an annual package of ten lakh rupees.Fortune 500 companies have a good budget for research and development purposes which spend a lot on patents. One of the major reasons to work in IPR is that you can have an international exposure while working in your basic field of interest. The icing on the cake is that making a career in Intellectual Property has low investment.

Roles and Responsibilities of an IP Professional
Working in the world of IPR means having a diverse profile. The roles and responsibilities include drafting: which means to understand an idea or invention and planning strategies for protection of those inventions and patents, understanding subtle differences in languages are important;Litigation, technology assessment, marketing, filing, analytics and strategic planning, philosophy, advocacy and so on.The idea is that an individual should be able to carry out more than one role as the concept of specialization is not very common in the Intellectual Property field.The roles and responsibilities of an IP Professional are listed below:-

• Identifying different types of technologies that have commercial applications, analysing the potential of inventions and recommending whether intellectual property protection should be used.
• Negotiation and execution of inter-institutional agreements must be carried out for allocations of the responsibilities for expenses and monetary returns.
• Make disclosures that are non-confidential and describe the intellectual property and related information for licensees.
• External attorneys must be provided with information that can be used for assisting the determination of intellectual property patentability.
• Developing appropriate commercial strategies in intellectual property, which includes the identification of prospective licensees with the help of information databases and discussions with inventors.
• Drafting and litigation
• Teaching, training and spreading knowledge regarding intellectual property rights and laws.
• Data Analytics and strategy planning
• Marketing and Technological Assessment
• Research, philosophy and advocacy

It is very important that one should understand the Intellectual Property Laws and its implications regardless of what role he or she considers is fit for. Good communication skills are a necessity as Intellectual Property Rights are strictly interdisciplinary.Good marketing skills are also involved as one has to deal with various communities for understanding inventions. A little Knowledge about science and technology comes in handy when you have to deal with patents.

Educational Requirements

Minimum educational requirements:-
A Bachelors degree in either of the mentioned fields:-
• Science and Technology
• Literature
• Arts
• History and Political Science
• Business management

However, more important than anything else, any individual looking to make a career out of IP services need to be completely aware of Intellectual Property Laws, and to what extent they can pertain in having a grasp of litigation, or other forms of lawful protection towards the idea itself in conjunction with its creator. Any IP Professional would have to be completely aware of the different IP laws and would need to be aware of them to the greatest possible extent. Since the entire presentation of a solution would have to be primarily rooted in ensuring that there are no loopholes from a legal perspective, students of Intellectual Property Laws are most effective for extending such services. However, this is not to say that they are exclusively the ones who could pursue a career in the field of IP services since awareness about science and technology, marketing etc. also serve to make important service ends meet.

However, it is very important to have a primary objective in mind when pursuing a career across the field of IP services for which companies serve as prospective employers. Some are quite adept at the theoretical aspects of the specialization, while others are more akin to field jobs. It should be correctly identified as companies find any one of them advantageous to their own service ends. However, being quite adept in both the aspects of IP education is something a handful of diligent students are able to accomplish.