New Delhi, Oct 21 (IANS): The Indian Patent Office has on the anvil a Detailed Annual Plan (DAP) to spread awareness about the new Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Policy, a senior official said on Friday.

Speaking at an Assocham event here, Controller General of Patents, Designs & Trademarks O.P. Gupta said the DAP to spread awareness would be drawn out in consultation with the stakeholders.

Conducting workshops, seminars in schools, universities and other such institutions could form part of the DAP.

"As part of the awareness programme, we as the Indian Intellectual Property office are interacting with all possible stakeholders and working out a detailed programme, so that we may conduct workshops in schools, colleges, universities.

"Seminars together with industry and academia and specific programmes for specific industries like small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and certain other specialised fields are also being considered," said Gupta.

"The idea is to spread awareness ... as more and more people become aware, it serves our purpose," he added.

"We simultaneously keep trying to promote and encourage people to take up programmes on their own and involve larger communities, where we involve agriculturists, farmers and producers on a larger scale," Gupta said.

Talking about the implementation in terms of enforcement aspect of IPR, he said: "The IPR Policy does talk about that. Those steps are being taken and toolkits are being prepared, which will be circulated to various police stations and other law enforcement agencies."

Saying that all commercial courts are also now listening to all IPR-related matters, he added: "With law universities and judiciary, we are already conducting training programmes in different places they are also part of the outreach programs."

Gupta said the basic idea of the IPR Policy is to provide an ecosystem that encourages individuals and corporate entities for risk taking for putting in their efforts, money and labour, so that they also derive reasonable benefits out of their own efforts. 

"But the underlined larger focus still is that all this has to benefit the society in particular and the country as a whole.

"There is a need to foster a kind of ecosystem and provide an environment to all, whereby awareness spreads not only through programmes that we conduct but people inculcate this as part of their culture," he added.

Gupta also said that creation/innovation and protection are two different aspects of the IP regime. "When you talk about creation and innovation, it is more about kind of inculcating a culture and providing protection in terms of seeking balance between both these aspects."