Technology Transfer to Agriculture & Animal Husbandry Startups for Commercialization and IP Issues in India
Every business understands that Intellectual Property (IP) is important for protecting their innovation. However, we can use the Intellectual Property only after commercialization. Therefore, this virtual event provides an overview on the importance of IP and technology commercialization. And, also on how the startups and MSMEs can commercialize their Intellectual Property.
Your innovation, intellectual property (IP) and technology transfers
“Technology transfer” describes a formal transfer of rights from scientific research to another party in order to use and commercialize new discoveries and innovations resulting from that research. The rights may be intellectual property (IP) in the form of patents, copyright, or other forms of IP, depending on the product of the research. This process includes:
- Funded research
- Invention disclosure
- Patents
- Licensing
- New startup ventures
Upfront fees, milestone payments and licensing royalties make up most of the returns from technology transfer, but can also be in the form of sponsored research, one-off fees, and equity in the new venture.
One of the key inputs for startups is technology. Entrepreneurs rely on new technology, source their innovation from universities to emerge and grow startups, thereby creating wealth, and jobs (Bala Subrahmanya 2017). Universities that develop these technologies adopt various forms and processes of commercialization to achieve a variety of objectives. Of late, considerable interest has developed among scholars to understand the benefits and challenges of universities to support startups (Gerbin and Drnovsek 2016). Universities commercialize technology through various organizational forms (like incubators, research parks, Technology Transfer offices, among others), and arrangements (like consultancy, alliances, joint ventures, among others) to do transactions (like technology licensing and transfer, among others) on intellectual property (Phan and Siegel 2006a). Among these organizational forms, incubators have gained prominence over the last few decades to encourage entrepreneurship through new startup emergence, development and growth (Mian, Lamine, and Fayolle 2016). We can view such entrepreneurship as an embedded phenomenon where social relations are facilitated by the linkages between entrepreneurs, resources, and opportunities (Jack and Anderson 2002). University-based incubators provide various support services including networking within the university and externally with investors, mentors and partners. Such a networking paves way to access and leverage resources and capabilities (Scillitoe and Chakrabarti 2010). Even while technology forms a key input to startups, networks that are formed around the university plays a key role in venture development. We explore networking at incubators, affecting the emergence and development of startups and thus aiding technology adoption and diffusion. We examine the case of an agricultural research university incubator, where there has been a significant number of startups emerging and developing through technology commercialization and utilizing networks nurtured by the university. Our contributions are (a) identifying key relationships connecting scientist level incentives on IP based development and network engagement and (b) how entrepreneur experience is associated with type of resources garnered and recognizing opportunities through the networks developed. The rest of the paper is structured as follows. Following this introduction, we provide background literature on networking in the context of entrepreneurship support, with a focus on startup level processes and outcomes. We then briefly provide an outline of the national knowledge system of agriculture to situate the study context. We then detail the case study method adopted, followed by a comparative analysis on networking among the sampled entrepreneurs. From this analysis we develop a set of propositions, leading to certain implications on nurturing networks in entrepreneurial support ecosystems.
IP regime in India
The start of a formal IP regime in India can be traced back to 1995. In 1995, the World Trade Organization introduced a multilateral legal agreement called the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) that set minimum standards for regulation including provisions, enforcement, and dispute resolution in such intellectual property rights by member nations (ICAR 2006). The intellectual property types covered in TRIPS also included plant varieties and geographical indications that are common in agriculture. India, being a member of WTO with its trade enticement, became a party to TRIPS agreement from 1995. This can be considered the starting point for the establishment of an IP regime in India at the level of international standards. In addition to the regulatory standards, TRIPS recognizes as part of its objective that the “protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights should contribute to the promotion of technological innovation and to the transfer and dissemination of technology” (WTO 2018). National level analysis from the National Knowledge Commission (NKC) was tasked to create a blueprint for tapping the knowledge bases in the country to face 21st century challenges (Commission 2009). NKC emphasized the agriculture crisis with respect to the dependence for jobs and GDP contribution and diminishing income growth for farmers. Further NKC recommended concrete steps across both knowledge generation and knowledge application. The knowledge generation step had suggestive actions like modernizing, organizing and coordination for better research outcomes in specific areas, appropriately incentivizing research and exploiting Intellectual Property Rights and encouraging private sector participation. The knowledge application step suggested farmer and community led collaborations with universities, and a decentralized Agriculture Technology Management Agency that can be both participatory and responsive to local needs among other actions (Commission, 2009). The Department of Agricultural Research and Education under the Ministry of Agriculture is one of the arms that governs the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) that coordinates research and education on agriculture across the country. ICAR is the apex body of the National Agriculture Research System and it is one of the largest in the world. ICAR coordinates, guides and manages research and education in agriculture across its 101 institutes and 71 agricultural universities in India. Its mandate and vision indicate commitment to national priorities on food security and engages in cutting edge research across various areas related to agriculture. This, makes it both a generator and an enabler of application of agricultural science and technology knowledge through its network. ICAR clearly recognizes the role of various stakeholder engagements for technology knowledge dissemination and commercialization (ICAR 2011). ICAR had released its Intellectual property guidelines document back in 2006 (ICAR 2006). This document established the general policy framework for IPRs, procedures adopted for management across the portfolio of different types of IP, incentives for scientists and related human resource development for IP related expertise. Notably the policy also paved way for public-private partnerships for IP commercialization through several technology management organizational arrangements at headquarter, zonal and university levels. These departments were subsequently established nationwide across most of the ICAR institutes (ICAR 2020).
National Agricultural Innovation Project
Based on the need to nurture and support development and application of innovation in agriculture through collaboration with farmers, public-private partnerships and broadly the civil society, the National Agricultural Innovation Project (NAIP) was envisioned and implemented by ICAR. The project had specific objectives on catalyzing change, encouraging innovation diffusion with market orientation, among others. The project supported by the World Bank provided an opportunity for ICAR to standardize and regulate the vast amount of research output that can be commercialized through its institutes. The project’s objectives were broad, and it reoriented the National Agriculture Research System (NARS), enhancing research in outcome-oriented areas like productivity, employment, livelihood and income, and building capacity to undertake research in frontier areas of agriculture. The project, biggest ever in agriculture innovation system, was completed over the period 2006-2014 giving an impetus to progressive policies, infrastructure, agricultural extensions and technology diffusion from the universities of ICAR. These included consortia mode of research, public-private research partnerships, technology commercialization that is decentralized and providing business development and incubation across ICAR institutes (World Bank 2015). Twenty-two business planning and development units (BPDU) were created providing market linkage, incubation and entrepreneurial support across the universities. The World Bank project appraisal and independent review estimated that these BPDUs and market linkages provided support to more than 1200 entrepreneurs and 91 new agri-business initiations and substantial job creation. Further 9700 farmers benefitted from direct technology transfer through demonstrations and spontaneous adoption (World Bank, 2015a). During the same period, there has been a considerable increase in the level of IP protection across ICAR institutes (Suman and Pandey 2014).This initiation may be considered a logical starting point for establishing incubator organizations in agricultural universities that have now proliferated across the country. Thus, given a national level knowledge system with networks across and within universities, extension organizations to farmers and collaboration with both government and private sector provides an appropriate context for our study. The networks nurtured by these universities are through their government interfaces, commercialization, outreach and incubation arms.
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EDITED BY- SOUMENDRA DUTTA
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