Pune: Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore (IISc) and Pune-based Prorigo Software have built a homegrown patent management software targeted at academic institutions and small attorney firms. This will cost a fraction of those sold by global firms, they said.
The tool, available commercially as a pay-as-you-use offering, automates the end-to-end process and is hosted on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform.
“This will help automate and streamline the patent filing process for the IP cells at academic institutes,†said IISc Associate Professor Srinivasan Raghavan, who led the development of the tool with Prorigo. “It will also free up time to allow for translating the intellectual property to industry.â€
Most patent management software currently available in India have been developed by multinational companies and is aimed at either corporate users or large legal firms.
The cost structure, which often requires a per-user licence fee, makes it unsuitable for academic institutions where the numbers are much higher.
“The cost of a component of the licence (of imported software) was more than the budget of IPTel at IISc,†said Raghavan. IPTel is the Intellectual Property and Technology Licensing unit of the IISc. “The budget of IPTel is in crores,†he added by way of explanation.
From the time an IP is disclosed for protection to the time a patent is granted and dies, many steps occur over a period of about 20 years, Prorigo and IISc said.
Before developing the software, IISc was managing the entire process manually, and there was little effort in translating or working with the industry to monetise the IP.
“The software will provide an operational blueprint for the IP cell and will be available as both a managed service or an enterprise SaaS product,†said Kaustubh Karandikar, director- software development at Prorigo Software.
The product will be available in three modules. The first module, legal agreements, has been launched. The second version, which automates the financial part, will be launched in a few months, and the third module, which will use artificial intelligence to evaluate a patent, will be released in 2022.
“This is an indigenous software and while developing it, we have also learnt how to define the process. We hope that once this is translated, the benefits can be shared with institutes in India and abroad as well,†said IISc Director Govindan Rangarajan.
A large part of the process in filing a patent is taken up by follow-ups and in keeping track of what needs to be done. Raghavan said the software would automate the process, allowing the department to focus on translating the IP to industry and finding use cases for it.
