On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 12:02 PM, "Sankarshan (সঙ্কর্ষণ)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > ravindra patake wrote: > >> In one hand we say that our CSIR research outputs have no use because it >> always remain in journals none is applied in reality or commercialized and >> on the other hand if CSIR is allowing to use something that could be >> applied, that could be come in reality then why we r opposing the things? > > Umm.. a very bad analogy would be that I (or a large set of I s) invest > in a house you own/have custody of and now you expect me to pay you to > use the facilities of the house - at some point in time I need to have a > return on my initial investment don't I ?
I think the article being discussed is quite clear in what it says: CSIR has badly managed its patenting strategy. CSIR already holds a large patent portfolio - and there was a general push to recognise scientific innovation by patents rather than peer-reviewed publications in the years leading to the implementation of GATT. However - in true Indian style - the number of patents and not its productivity were what was touted, as a result of which CSIR earned ~4 crore from its patent holding, and spent ~10 crore in filing and maintaining them. The proposal of a holding company is to maximise the profitability of its patents - not just in extracting maximum profit from existing patents, but also in selecting what to patent. Much of the argument on this thread is on the validity of CSIR patenting in the first place, especially with public funding - the source of which is conveniently personalised! Not all CSIR research is publically funded. And very little of it follows the patent model. The entire leather industry - which employs 2.5 million people in our country - is empowered due to pioneering work by CLRI in developing novel technology for tanning, and transferring it to both the organised AND unorganised sectors. No industry bothered in investing in the R&D, and no "benevolent government" passed on technology. CSIR has also recently gone out on a limb by pushing Open Source into its R&D with the Open source Drug Discovery program. I hope it works. I work for it. A patent is still required for products which scale with industrial production and have a global market. CSIR is probably hedging its bets. Patent products that have "value", and encourage unfettered research in "valueless" products such as leather, and drugs for tuberculosis and tropical disease. Note that value is determined by its demand in the global market (read countries with purchasing power) and not by the social good of an invention. Andrew _______________________________________________ Freed mailing list [email protected] http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/freed
