CHENNAI: Anna University has been witnessing a surge in the number of patents granted and published year after year and encouraged by it, the university has now decided to file provisional patents to safeguard the intellectual property of its students and faculty members.
The provisional patent application is a preliminary step, before the filing of a regular patent, for obtaining a type of interim protection. In 2019, the university was granted 21 patents while the number increased to 36 in 2020. And in 2021, the university was granted 32 patents. Similarly, there has been a significant rise in the number of published patents also. In 2019, only eight patents were published, the number increased to 18 in 2020 and in 2021 the figure reached 31.
Explaining the published patents, a varsity official said once a patent application is filed, the Patent Office publishes it in the official patent journal making it available for public perusal. And thereafter, the application is sent for a thorough examination and once all objections are addressed, the patent will be granted. “In the last two years, there has been a significant rise in the number of patents granted to the university. And, one of the main reasons for it is that during the pandemic, the Patent Office became very active and the time for granting a patent was appreciably reduced,” said Vice Chancellor of the university, R Velraj.
In a bid to encourage students and faculty members to file more patents, the university has recently started helping researchers for filing provisional patents, through which duplication can be avoided. The university bears the entire cost of the provisional patent and also provides necessary support and guidance to the researchers.
“If any of the researchers are very confident about their work and is sceptical about its plagiarism, then we will take measures for filing a provisional patent. A team of subject experts from the university and other universities will examine it and recommend that it is patentable,” said the vice-chancellor.