4. Intellectual Property Policy Strategies for Sustainable Manufacturing in India

Sustainability has become the buzzword in recent times. While manufacturing leads to considerable advantages like contributing to the GDP, providing goods and services for consumer, and generating employment opportunities, it is also contributing to the detriment of the environment and the natural resources, which run counter to the philosophy of sustainability. In order to achieve sustainability in manufacturing, substantial investments have to be made towards innovation, which can be protected under the intellectual property regime. But the IP rights prevent others from copying the technology, which is antithesis to the concept of sustainable manufacturing. Companies need to be aware of the IP policy of India, which facilitates the protection of environment and the natural resources. Also, India as a country needs to relook at the IP strategies available to ensure that it has sufficient access to technology, which can help in the proliferation of sustainable manufacturing technologies. This chapter provides for two levels of strategies, both relating to IP rights, which can be adopted by India, in order to achieve sustainable manufacturing in the country. The first level is the IP policy strategies that can be adopted by India, in light of the international treaties like TRIPS, the WTO system, as well as other treaties, conventions and protocols. The second level is the IP strategies that can be adopted by the non-governmental sector including the private commercial sector as well as the academic sector (both public funded as well as private funded). While the former analyses the TRIPS agreement and tries to understand how the objectives stipulated therein have been captured by the Indian IP legislations, the latter looked at strategies like investing towards R&D, licensing of technology, patent pools and copyright collectives, open source and open innovations, and also government initiatives that could ensure the implementation of sustainable manufacturing technology in India.