IPR Regime: Whom does it protect?

"Intellectual Property" that buzzword of technologists, capitalists and of the newly globalized world, has shaped the world over the last 10,000 years. The ingenuity of mankind has solved many puzzles, understood and harnessed nature, synthesized new products, mastered the human body and sent man into space. Human thought has created the communication and transportation revolutions which has (to borrow from Iridium's famous line) made "Geography to become History".

I don't claim to be an expert in world legal affairs, economics or on the benefits and ills of the patent regime in capitalism, I present here my views based on my personal experiences and raise a few questions!

How do ideas and products evolve?

How did all this worldwide innovation that harnessed the power of the human brain over a few thousand years happen? From Eureka moments of a few individuals where they came up with a completely new solution in a giffy or from inspiration of problems solved earlier, of incrementally building upon partial solutions of others? Many innovations, especially in today's age are worked upon simultaneously by many people all over the world and the solutions are not very different. Recent articles about Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection (and Evolution), point to the role of substantial ideas of one of his compatriots Thomas Malthus who sent him manuscripts of his ideas from half way across the world that Darwin built upon. Malthus did not mind Charles Darwin taking all the credit. Darwin just took a lot of those combined ideas to market! Therefore who owns the "Intellectual Property" and has the IPR?

Protect it through a patent?

Some years ago a start up that I co-founded "invented" some neat (8) ideas on mobility - location based advertising, unified messaging interface, universal mobility client, etc. Our board and investors discussed if we should patent them in the US. Costs, @ $50,000 per patent if done through lawyers based in the US and $5000 if done through lawyers based in India filing patents in the US. I talked to a few start ups who had filed US patents for their ideas - the verdict, yeah go ahead and file a patent - better to say its patented than to say its patentable, but remember it will not help get revenues or customers. The patents were filed and many of the ideas are now rolled out by many other companies, but we cant (and wont!) do a thing about it. Did companies "copy" our ideas? Maybe, but that's really a part of evolutionary thinking and how many different ways can the world solve a given problem - most people in a sector think alike, networked as they are.

Whom does a patent protect? The incumbents and the rich?

So we are not in a position to protect our patents! Can we raise the resources to get lawyers to protect them? Maybe we could? Is it worth it ? Maybe many million $s. Will we - no, we'll go invent the next idea and better monetize it ourselves next time by selling our products in the market. Sam Pitroda in one of the entrepreneur lecture series in Bangalore in 2004 talked all about his work in the US where he had filed more than 50 patents. He then came to India, setup CDOT and worked for a salary of 1$/month for many years. He then went through a heart surgery, his kids were to go to college in the US and found that he had run out of money and had to earn some again. He went back to the US, found and sued all those big companies that had violated his patents - including some who had PDA products, the "basic" idea for which he had filed a patent 20 years before" Sam Pitroda, could protect his patents, not sure how many others can do it and was it fair for him to sue based on a "basic" idea 20 years ago - well, he just used the current system to make some money and why not?

Another one to make the lawyers rich?

Large US companies and indeed many companies all over the world have a battery of lawyers that work 8x5 (they don't need to work 24x7 for the big bucks they make) helping their company file a few patents each day and then look out for patent infringements by other smaller or larger companies. So the big and rich companies protect themselves, make money by suing others and the lawyers get their big bucks by working a few hours each week. Filing patents seem to make the lawyers richer and the scientists and entrepreneurs much poorer without actually being able to protect their patents without spending some more money!

Secrets are best kept by not sharing them - but then how do you get the moolah?

Many IT products especially in the CAD/CAM area come with hardware locks. The software works only with the hardware lock dongle which is sold to the buyer of their million $ product. Can this be viable for sub $100 or even $100K products, I am not so sure. In the IT world we are sometimes not sure whether to show even prospects a presentation or demo and email them a PPT or just "show" it to them via Webex or through a video conference. And think of all the "trusted sales enablers" and contacts that one may need to send the information to. The only thing that will work is to carefully pre-qualify whom to send it to, but with an element of risk! Send it you will, since that's the way you will get it to market and make your moolah. Take it to market rapidly and have enough in it in terms of "new technology" so that you get time to take it to market before others catch up with you. If you cant, before others catch up, so be it.

Innovation is being globalized

Jenga toys - invented from an African idea of wooden building blocks, but patented by and taken to market by an American. Poly Al, a roofing material made from recycled "tetrapacks", invented in Kenya, perfected in Brazil and now being introduced into many parts of the world by Tetrapak! Mobile Ring tones, invented in Finland, created billions of dollars of business for many businesses all over the world. Could the inventors (especially in Africa) all have filed US patents (or for that matter a patent granted in India or by the UN) and then protected them by spending a quarter million $s in filling and then protecting them? Therefore, whats the way to protect your IP? By the ways of the jungle....

Let the wild jungles of capitalism - stay wild

True capitalism is about innovation, competition and democratic access to markets. Incumbents, like the lions and tigers of the jungle will mark and protect their territories with all their might and as long as they can. New comers need to be agile, swift and have new ideas to dislodge the incumbents. No problem, the new comers will work hard to take on and dislodge the powerful incumbents as long as they are not protected by the state through the "crutches" of "Intellectual Property Rights". IPR is the same feudal system of protecting incumbents and the powerful that democracies work at dismantling. Let the laws of the jungle prevail and not the crutches of a document of a half baked idea that was filed away somewhere. Let the brave hearts who ran with their idea, put their money, effort and life at stake, reap the rewards without the crutches!

Piracy is free publicity, expands markets - harness it

One of the companies that I am on the board of got a legal notice from Microsoft a couple of years ago. "Your company last bought a Microsoft product in 2000 and no more since then up to 2007. Your company must have grown in this time and therefore you seem to be using unlicensed Microsoft software, please explain" Hey, no contact from Microsoft Sales in the last 7 years to ask if we needed any more of their products and then this notice instead of working on pricing mechanisms that expand the market. The truth is that the company had definitely grown in revenues in that period but not in the number of people who needed MS-Office or a new version of their product. Many years ago when there were no Eastern Economy Editions, Asian Editions and Indian Editions of books, the footpaths of most Indian cities sold so many "photo-copied" books of foreign authors. Most of that has reduced/changed, with the cheaper (Rs. 99/-)editions and paperbacks that are now available. People don't need to "xerox" books anymore. Tally, arguably the best known Indian software product, has only its own pirated copies as its competitor. They ran an amnesty scheme to convert a lot of these into licensed copies, brought down prices and expanded their market manifold. The Netscape Internet browser over which Microsoft and Netscape bitterly contested a much publicized anti-trust suit is now sold FREE packaged with the PC/laptop and the first idea for the browser was itself invented at CERN in Europe! In many other instances, (alleged) trademark infringements can at best be called "unimaginative" where the person who copied it didn't use much imagination and just produced something "similar".

Our daughters aged 6 and 10, often come to us (usually the elder one) saying "She's copying me", expecting us to reprimand the "offender". We have tried several ways to explain that its the good ideas that are copied and that she should be proud of her idea that was copied, that she herself got her idea from somewhere else, but the complaints continue. Its still too early to tell her about the Laws of the Jungle!!

Attitude determines Altitude

In corporate life (or indeed in any part of life - social or corporate) a high degree of importance is normally attributed to technical skills - whether its in technology, finance or administration. Whilst, the need for technical skills should not be underestimated, life over a period of time, often needs overcoming obstacles that will surely come up due to lack of resources or competition from others working in your field. Changes are inevitable over a period of time and the resilience to overcome the odds, the patience to wait for things to get better and for people or markets to be ready is a key ingredient for success. Many businesses are successful because they stayed the course in bad times and reaped the benefits of the good times or waited it out until a market matured.

R. Gopalkrishnan, Director Tata Sons, is one of those management professionals who has always focused on soft skills, HR, EQ and on "Effectiveness vs Efficiency". Effectiveness is always long-term and long lasting and efficiency (alone) is often short term. In his book "The Case of the Bonsai Manager" he explains in great detail, these aspects of human endeavour. Using facts from the plant and animal world he explains various management concepts, stressing on the soft skills of managers and working with people to build great teams and organizations.

In a recent article in Businessworld, "Its A Matter of Attitude" he reiterates this view of attitude, real world learning and a balance of technical and human skills being the cornerstone of success. Students should be humbled by the knowledge they acquire at B-school, not become cocky or arrogant about it. He says, "In cooperation with the Centre for Creative Leadership, the Tata Management Training Centre (TMTC) undertook research on what kinds of lessons leaders in India usually learn and how they learn them. The research paper suggests that leaders learn from three ‘worlds’ in which they participate — their ‘Inner World’ (self awareness, confidence, life goals), ‘World of Getting Things Done’ (operational skills, leadership, technical aspects) and the ‘World of People’ (managing subordinates, team play)

Read all about this in this recent article http://www.businessworld.in/index.php/Columns/Its-A-Matter-Of-Attitude.html

Bangalore is now a big city!

I lived in Bangalore from 1991 to 2005. Lived in most parts of Bangalore starting from Rajajinagar, Basaveshwarnagar in the West, Koramangala in the South to Palm Meadows in the East and Jakkur in the north. In this period, I was witness to Bangalore growing from the quite, sleepy, public sector town with a spattering of small IT companies to a globally recognized IT destination. From the dream of most of the middle class to own a 60x40 "site" in the early 90's to many NRIs and local IT entrepreneurs to own a "million $ property" in gated communities like Palm Meadows by 2000. In this period, I also saw it transform in the corporate sector from a very South Indian cosmopolitan setup into a destination of professionals from all over India and from 2002 from many parts of the world.

Visited Bangalore last week after a gap of a few months. The very well organized new airport, includes a very visible bus system with plush buses and a professional service. Its the only airport I have seen in the world that has such a visible bus service and seems to be a part of the public consciousness with good connectivity and visibility in most parts of the city.

With the new airport and the road into the city, its B-Trac service, around 100 policeman in a 20 km stretch with Blackberry enabled offence tracking system (developed and deployed by my friend Suresh) its now a big city, acquiring some of the infrastructure of Delhi. The elevated roadway system from Silk Board junction to Electronic City and a few other infrastructure projects will clear some of the bottlenecks that make it almost impossible to estimate how much time it will take to a point in South Bangalore after getting from the airport to Mekri Circle in about 1/2 hour. Friends tell me about 2 hour drives for distances that could be covered in 1/2 hour earlier.

I stayed in South Bangalore and planned to visit a few friends in the Eastern part of Bangalore. Just could not make it! and just about made it back to the airport in time for my flight back to Pune (was a relief since missing flights due to traffic is quite common in Bangalore). After staying in Pune now for the last 3 years, where it doesn't take more than 1 hour to get from one end of the city to the other, I just could not plan effectively to make it through all parts of my visit agenda.

Bangalore is now a truly big city, and seems now to be logically divided into four parts, e.g. Whitefiled area can now be truly called East Bangalore! However it now needs to quickly execute all its infrastructure plans with a Comprehensive Mobility Plan and especially complete its Metro project and connect the airport to the city. Not many people can afford Air Deccan's helicopter service to get into the city!

Dot Hai Toh Hot Hai?

The "Dot Hai Toh Hot Hai", public-service campaign run by Radio Mirchi, urging citizens to go out and vote in Pune on 23rd April, ran for more than a month before the polls. Many other campaigns were run by various sections of the print, television and online media.
Jagorey, conducted a well publicized campaign from Sept'08 urging citizens to register their names in Voter Lists and go out and vote on Voting Day.

I myself was inspired by these campaigns and even before these campaigns, out of guilt of not having voted regularly, wanted to vote this time. I had last voted in the 1990 Maharashtra Assembly Elections at a polling booth at Pali Hill in Mumbai for the first time. Didn't vote since then until last week. Same reasons as many many others - I am too busy!, Vote doesn't count, Don't know how to register for voting, etc. I was just fooling myself!

The campaigns were expected to galvanise educated Civil Society, particularly the middle class to go out and vote. Nothing of the sort seems to have happened. Voting percentages in a supposedly rights conscious city like Pune (the NGO capital of the country) was @ 40%, the lowest ever for the city. 26/11 was touted to be a "wake up call", " a galvanizing factor", "a catalyst" for CHANGE! Only 43% of Mumbai voted and South Mumbai the epicenter of 26/11, even less!

Is Educated Civil Society really waking up? I am sure they are and they will. But not yet, not as fast as some people hoped for. The "secession of the successful" continues and its not a priority yet for the middle class that seems to be doing well in any case. They think they are doing well in spite of the government and only due to their own "hard work". Humility is a lost virtue these days!

Several reasons are also being put out on how the system is screwed up and in spite of their 15 minute "hard work" to find their names in the Voters List, the screwed up system didn't have their names in the Voter Lists! This in spite of:

• Jagorey starting their campaign (in Sept 08) and putting up a corporate style service to help find your constituency and filing for inclusion of your name in the Voters List
• One of more than 14 documents being accepted as residence proof!!
• The EC and district, city administrations putting out the first version of the Voters List for public verification, first in Oct 2008 and again in January 2009.
• The verification of your name was a 10 minute job at a EC office in January with a name search done on a laptop - typing your name in English to find your name in the Devanagari voting list.
• Huge coverage exhorting citizens to check their names in advance and take action to get their names in, right up to 31st March, a fortnight before voting day.
• Plenty of websites pointing to "10 ways to check your name in the voters list" (e.g. smartvote.in).
• Name search sites to look for your names online
• SMS service where you could send a SMS with your name and get details of your voting booth.
• Several corporators, political parties doing their bit to help people get themselves registered (We got our names registered with service from a local corporator in July 08)

This may almost sound like government propaganda! But its just the list of facts and humility to accept that a big and sincere effort was made by many to help people go out and vote. I don't know of any other "public transaction" that has got so much support from government agencies, NGOs and a section of active civil society. Yet, the convenient excuse "I wanted to vote, but the "System" is screwed up as I have always said...I told you so". Ludicrous comments like "I dont trust the EVMs, they all seem to be rigged". This after several newspaper articles and TV programs have explained in great detail how tamper proof the system is and there are 500 odd political parties and 100+ NGOs to "check" the system. Is there scope for the "System" to improve, yes sure there is. But then, there's a bigger scope for Civil Society to improve as well.

I think its a long way to go before "lazy, arrogant and selfish" civil society wakes up, takes the effort to get their names in voters lists and goes and votes even if they need to brave the 40 degree heat for an hour every few years. Even if voting was made compulsory as per L K Advani's suggestion, school-boy excuses and fake "I was ill" notes will be used to avoid voting. The only event that MAY galvanise educated civil society is if the government announces that citizens are no longer allowed to freely travel to the US/Europe/Australia for studies, jobs and visits! Then we MAY see the middle class go and vote out the proposal in large numbers!

I for one enjoyed the voting experience and didn't find any "irregularities" or "insincerity's" in the polling machinery! Here's hoping the "Go and Vote" campaigns continue and voting percentages improve in the upcoming Maharashtra assembly polls and Lok Sabha elections in 2014.