(09 Mar, 2019)



GI Website & Tutorial Video on IPR

The Union Minister of Commerce and Industry has launched a tutorial video on “Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)” for school students and the Geographical Indications (GI) website.

  • India is already a signatory to WTO’s TRIPS Agreement and has enacted or amended the laws in harmony with the agreement.

GI Website

  • The website showcases Indian GIs products, classified state wise as well as product category wise.
  • It includes specific and comprehensive details of geographical area, description of product, uniqueness, history, product process/ processing in addition to enlisting GI authorized users.
  • The website aims to promote creativity and motivate more of India’s skilled artisans to apply for GI registration.

Tutorial Video on IPR

  • A 20-minute tutorial video created by the Cell for IPR Promotion and Management (CIPAM), Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) in collaboration with Qualcomm deals with fundamentals of IPRs such as Patents, Copyrights and Trademarks.
  • ‘IP Nani’, India’s first IP Mascot features in the video that aims to spread awareness about the importance of IPRs amongst children.
  • The tutorial video can be used in schools without any external intervention from teachers or experts and will aid in reaching a large number of schools and students, thereby overcoming issues of bandwidth and limited resources.
  • The video is available on CIPAM’s YouTube Channel and will form part of the existing resource pool on CIPAM’s official website www.cipam.gov.in which is freely available for public.

Intellectual Property Rights

  • These are the rights that are given to persons/agencies for their creativity/innovations.
  • The laws that govern IPRs in India are : The Copyright Act, 1957, Patents Act,1970, Trade Mark Act, 1999, The Designs Act, 2000, The Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection ) Act, 1999, The Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Act, 2001 and The SemiConductor Integrated Circuits Layout Design Act, 2000.

IP Nani

  • IP Nani was launched by Ministry of Commerce and Industry in 2018.
  • It is a tech-savvy grandmother who helps the government and enforcement agencies in combating IP crimes with the help of her grandson “Chhotu” aka Aditya.
  • The IP mascot will spread awareness about the importance of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) among people, especially children, in an interesting manner.

WTO’s TRIPS Agreement:

  • The agreement that came into force from January 1, 1995 lays down minimum standards for protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights in WTO member countries with a view to reduce distortions and impediments to international trade.
  • The Agreement provides for norms and standards in respect of following areas of intellectual property: Patents, Trademarks, Copyrights, Geographical Indications, and Industrial Designs.

Cell for IPR Promotion and Management

  • The Cell for IPR Promotion and Management (CIPAM) was created in 2016 under the aegis of the Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP), Ministry of Commerce & Industry to take forward the implementation of the National IPR Policy.
  • Since then, CIPAM is working towards creating public awareness about IPRs in the country, promoting the filing of IPRs through facilitation, providing inventors with a platform to commercialize their IP assets and coordinating the implementation of the National IPR Policy in collaboration with Government Ministries/Departments and other stakeholders.
Trademark Patent Copyright
  • A trademark is a word, phrase, symbol, and/or design that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods of one party from those of others.
  • The term "trademark" is often used to refer to both trademarks and service marks.
  • Unlike patents and copyrights, trademarks do not expire after a set term of years. Instead, a trademark can last forever, so long as the owner continues to use the mark in commerce to indicate the source of goods and services.
  • A patent is a limited duration property right relating to an invention, granted by Trademark Office in exchange for public disclosure of the invention. Patentable materials include machines, manufactured articles, industrial processes, and chemical compositions. The duration of patent protection is 20 years in case of India.
  • A copyright protects works of authorship that have been tangibly expressed in a physical form.
    Example - songs, books, movies, and works of art.

Exclude Tree Cover from Forest Surveys

A high-power committee of Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) recommended that Forest Surveys should explicitly demarcate trees grown in forests from those grown outside, that is, in plantations and private lands.

  • The government also includes substantial patches of trees outside areas designated as forests, such as plantations or Greenlands, in its assessment.
  • Forest Surveys(the biennial exercise by the government to estimate forest cover) count both plantations and private lands towards estimating the portion of India’s geographical area covered by forest.
    • Including both is not ecologically sound.
  • Getting India to have at least 33% of its area under forest is a long-standing goal of the government since 1988.
  • Various editions of the SFR have over the years reported the area under forests as hovering around 21%.

India State of Forest Report (SFR) 2017

  • A marginal 0.21% rise in the area under forest between 2015 and 2017.
  • India has about 7,08,273 sq. km. of forest(include Tree cover), which is 21.53% of the geographic area of the country (32,87,569 sq. km.).
  • The total tree cover, according to this assessment, was 93,815 sq. km. or a 2% rise from approximately 92,500 sq. km. in 2015.
  • Tree Cover improved from 2.82%(2015) to 2.95%(2017) of India’s geographic area.

Forest Survey of India (FSI)

  • Forest Survey of India (FSI), is a premier national organization under the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests, responsible for assessment and monitoring of the forest resources of the country regularly.

Tree Cover & Forest Cover

  • The Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change defines
    • ‘Forest cover’ in India as “all lands, more than one hectare in area with a tree canopy density of more than 10%”.
    • ‘Tree cover’ is defined as “tree patches outside recorded forest areas exclusive of forest cover and less than the minimum mappable area of one hectare”.

India Cooling Action Plan

Recently, India Cooling Action Plan (ICAP) is launched by Ozone Cell of Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change(MoEFCC)

  • ICAP aims to provide sustainable cooling while keeping in mind, at the same time, the need to protect the ozone layer
  • It provides a 20-year perspective, with projections for cooling needs in 2037-38.

Objectives

  • Assessment of cooling requirements across sectors in the next 20 years and the associated refrigerant demand and energy use,
  • Map the technologies available to cater to the cooling requirement including passive interventions, refrigerant-based technologies and alternative technologies such as not-in-kind technologies,
  • Suggest interventions in each sector to provide for sustainable cooling and thermal comfort for all,
  • Focus on skilling of Refrigeration and air-conditioning(RAC) service technicians, and
  • Develop an R&D innovation ecosystem for indigenous development of alternative technologies.

Environmental and socio-economic benefits

  • Thermal comfort for all – provision for cooling for Economically Weaker Section (EWS) and Low Income Group (LIG) housing
  • Sustainable cooling – low GHG emissions related to cooling
  • Doubling Farmers Income – better cold chain infrastructure – better value of produce to farmers, less wastage of produce
  • Skilled workforce for better livelihoods and environmental protection
  • Make in India – domestic manufacturing of air-conditioning and related cooling equipment.
  • Robust R&D on alternative cooling technologies – to provide a push to innovation in the cooling sector.

The plan is in sync with India’s commitment to the Montreal Protocol, 1987 (reduction of ozone-depleting substances) as well as the Paris Agreement,2015 to meet the challenges of climate change.

Important Fact For Prelims (9th March 2019)

Indian Brown Mongoose

  • An Indian brown mongoose (Herpestes fuscus) has been seen at the Biligiri ranganabetta tiger reserve (BRT) in Chamarajanagar district, Karnataka.
  • This is the first time this species has been seen outside Virajpet Taluk in Karnataka.
  • Indian brown mongoose has a dark brown coat with fine strips and black legs.
  • All mongoose species found in India are protected under Schedule II (Part II) of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, which prohibits all trade of animals listed in it. IUCN Status is the least concern.
  • Chamarajanagar district is the only district in India which has three Tiger Reserves-Bandipur Tiger Reserve, Biligiri ranganabetta Tiger Reserve (BRT) and Malai Mahadeshwara Tiger Reserve.