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Alok Aggarwal,
Founder, Evalueserve |
From
time immemorial, Indians have worshipped gyaan, vigyaan and buddhi-knowledge,
science and the intellect. Hindu culture has also harboured an aversion
to wealth creation from knowledge. The following legend illustrates
the profound disdain for the very idea of commercialising knowledge:
knowledge-bestowing Saraswati and wealth-granting Lakshmi, wives
of cosmos-creating Brahma and order-preserving Vishnu, respectively,
could not live together in harmony-reflecting the Hindu discomfort
in linking knowledge and wealth. Even today, it's unusual to find
images of Saraswati and Lakshmi in the same house.
India abounds with anecdotes of gurus who imparted
wisdom without expecting anything in return, with students offering
just a voluntary 'guru dakshina' (offering) in gratitude. In history,
King Chandragupta Maurya's pragmatic advisor on statecraft, Chanakya,
seems to have been the only noteworthy exception. "Arth karicheye
vidya" ('create wealth from knowledge'), he asserted, almost
2,300 years ago.
Given the cultural context, it is hardly surprising
that Dr. Jagdish Chandra Bose-the first to invent a wireless system
that transmitted radio waves over a distance of 75 feet-was against
any financial gains from his inventions. In a letter to Rabindranath
Tagore, he explains why he turned down the business proposal of
a telegraph company proprietor who had come 'patent form in hand':
"My friend, I wish you could see the terrible attachment to
gain in this country, that all-engaging lucre, that lust for money
and more money. Once caught in that trap, there would have been
no way out for me."
In 1904, frustrated by Bose's obstinacy, two
of his friends, Sister Nivedita and Sara Bull, took the initiative
and obtained an American patent in his name (for his invention of
the galena single contact point receiver). Bose, however, still
refused to make money out of his invention. Patrick Geddes summarised
Bose's reaction aptly in his authorised biography later on: "Simply
stated, it is the position of the old rishis of India, of whom he
is increasingly recognised as a renewed type, and whose best teachings
were ever open to all willing to accept it." Isn't it ironic
that the spiritualist Nivedita had to do what the inventor Bose
ought to have in the first place? Or is it simply that the British-born
Nivedita was a child of industrialised Europe?
Judge the West's patent-savviness from the
following:
- Guglielmo Marconi, who filed the world's
first patent in 1896, for a system of telegraphy using Hertzian
waves, founded the world's first wireless telegraph and signal
company in 1897.
- Albert Einstein was a Swiss patent examiner
during 1902-1909, when he wrote his papers on Relativity. He continued
at the patent office even after achieving fame in 1905, though
he later became a professor.
- Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephony
system in 1876. In 1877, two businessmen financed him to create
Bell Telephone Co. that later became AT&T.
- Thomas Alva Edison sold his first invention-an
unpatented stock-quotation printer-for $40,000 (Rs 18.4 lakh)
He used this money in 1876 to start a lab that led to 1,093 patented
inventions, one of which helped the installation of the world's
first large central-electric power station (in New York) by the
Edison General Electric Co., today's GE.
- Abraham Lincoln was awarded a patent for
a 'Device for Buoying Vessels over Shoals' on May 22, 1849, and
he remains the only American President to have been awarded a
patent.
A culture of patenting for profit comes from
big success stories. Indian genius is recognised, but money
is important |
And our record? More than a century has gone
by since Bose, but not much has changed.
- Professor C.N.R. Rao, the former Director
of the Indian Institute Of Science (IISC), published more than
1,000 research papers, but did not file a single patent.
- The Council of Scientific & Industrial
Research in India (CSIR), with 5,400 scientists working with annual
funding of $225 million, has been granted 159 patent applications
by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) during 1991-2000.
In contrast, the IBM research division, with 2,700 scientists
and about $540 million, filed over 900 patent applications in
the year 2000.
- The seven IITs, the All India Institute
of Medical Sciences, and the IISC have hundreds of professors
and students. And yet, these nine institutions only filed 84 patents
with the USPTO during 1991-2000.
- India lags the US, Japan and Germany in
terms of converting government expenditure on R&D into valuable
patents.
During 1997, the IBM Research Division assigned
me the task of setting up an IBM Research Laboratory, which I did
in April 1998, on the IIT Delhi campus. Now IBM operates on patent
application 'quotas', and we were asked to file 12 during 1999.
Thanks to the Indian genius, we ended up filing 19. Impressed with
our progress, GE decided to open a lab in Bangalore of its own.
Yet, creating a culture of active patenting
and generating value from it requires some big success stories.
Indian scientific competence has already been acknowledged, but
at the moment, even Florida State University, with seven patents
per year, earns more revenue from patents than CSIR. Commercialisation
is important.
India's premier research institutes are so
focussed on basic research that the business prospects get left
out. Lack of Intellectual Property (IP) policies, of course, is
another problem. But on the whole, much can be done. And must be
done quickly, if India is to catch up with the West. "The introduction
of patent laws," said Lincoln, "was one of the three most
important developments in the history of the world," and "the
patent system adds the Fuel of Interest to the Fire of Genius."
For India, it's time to renew the old advice: Arth karicheya vidya.
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