Intellectual Property(ip) A Career Option For Technical Graduates

India is presently among top 5 growing economies of the world which has resulted in huge demand for technically qualified professionals. According to the National Skills Development Commission report of March 2009, the demand for skilled manpower will be about 83 million by 2015 and 500 million by 2020. The professionals workforce that is emerging from India's higher education system often cannot find suitable employment due to a growing gap between their knowledge and real practice and to limited job opportunities in their fields, coupled with low salaries.

Today, most of the technical graduates are considering alternate career options. There are a number of alternative career options available but in my view one of the better option for technical graduates is in the field of Intellectual Property. The field of IP covers patents, trade marks, trade secrets, designs and other creative forms of human endeavor. A technical graduate can opt for a career of a Patent professional and thus earn handsomely while being in its core technical field of interest as well as enhance her/his knowledge base by working on the latest technology inventions from her/his own field. Types of industries having a good prospect in Patents are Biotechnology, Bioinformatics, Pharmaceuticals, Information Technology, Chemical, Mechanical, Textile, Automobile, and Heavy Engineering. Career openings in the field of Patents can be directly attributed to the growth in certain areas like IP related work outsource from US to India and patents filed by industry sector in a year (both domestic and international).

A person in field of IP/Patents can work in following areas:-

Mergers & Acquisition - IPR Audit
IPR Valuation
Inventory of the Company's IPR
Portfolio Analysis
Financial Reporting
Diligence of Investors
IP Watch
Patent Claim Mappings
R & D Taxation Credit Support
Document Writing
Prior Art Search
Patentability
Patent Application Drafting & Filing
Licensing of IPR
Prosecution of patent applications.

A person seeking a career in IP/Patents can work in:-

KPOs
Law firms
Corporate housesProduction units
Government research institutions and universities
Freelance as patent engineer and patent agent.

The basic qualification for a person to work in the field of Patents is a technical degree such as BE. B.Tech., B.Pharma., M.Pharma., M.Tech., MS, PhD. S/He should have sound knowledge of his core technical field and working knowledge of IP/Patent laws. The person should have good reading, writing and analytical skills to succeed in this field. Further, s/he should have knowledge & experience of Patent laws of a number of jurisdictions e.g. US, Europe, India, etc.

The problem faced by most people seeking a career in field of IP is the lack of knowledge about good courses in this field. Recently a number of courses in IP have been started by different universities and IP firms. Most of the courses offered by these Universities and firms are either distance learning programs or focus on Indian jurisdiction. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) also offers a number of online courses, which one can take for knowledge enhancement Some of the Universities/Institutes running courses in IP are IGNOU, NLU Bangalore, NALSAR Bangalore, IP University Delhi, Indian Law Institute, etc. One very renowned & professional training Institute of the country is the Global Institute of Intellectual Property (GIIP).GIIP stands ahead of others in the fact that it provides training in IP laws of three jurisdictions e.g. US, Europe and India. Its mode of training is also better than others because it provides both theoretical and practical knowledge in areas of patent searching, landscaping, drafting, filing and prosecution for US, European and Indian jurisdictions.