AK Koul addresses the session on intellectual property rights at a Ranchi hotel on Tuesday. (Prashant Mitra)

When a Ranchi-based bag manufacturer got an invitation to attend a session on intellectual property rights (IPR) few days back, he was at his wit’s end. He had heard the term IPR for the first time. But after some research on the Internet, he realised he could not afford to give the event a miss.

According to Word Trade Organisation, intellectual property rights are the rights given to a person over the use of his/her creations for a certain period of time.

“Honestly speaking, I had no idea what IPR was. But now I know how important it is for my business,” the trader, not willing to be named, told The Telegraph, after attending the daylong awareness programme on the issue in Ranchi on Tuesday.

The event was jointly organised by Confederation of Indian Industries (Jharkhand chapter) and state unit of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) Development Institute.

Addressing the inaugural session as the chief guest, vice chancellor of National University for Studies and Research in Law A.K. Koul blamed the Centre for the poor international trade, leading to financial deficits.

“I don’t think the Government of India did anything substantial in the past 10 years to improve our trade outlook at the global level. IPR is one such thing, which is still not in vogue, because of lack of eagerness shown in developing and adopting it properly in our country’s business establishments,” said Koul.

He added that in today’s world, IPR was the key and fundamental requirement for any business. “IPR basically protects your unique content from being copied. It can be an idea, a product, a business model, anything and everything. The reason why developing countries excel is because they sell their IPR. It’s high time India too takes it seriously,” Koul said.

Rahul Singh, head of CII Jharkhand, said IPR could be of any form. “Patents, bar codes, trademark, copyright etc. Each has its own importance as it prevents others from copying. If your product or service is covered under IPR, it provides scope for any entity to expand. International business demands IPR,” he said.