Intellectual Property Rights in Himachal Pradesh

Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) are legal rights that protect creations and/or inventions resulting from intellectual activity in the industrial, scientific, literary or artistic fields. The most common IPRs include patents, copyrights, marks and trade secrets.  Intellectual property is the product of the human intellect including creativity concepts, inventions, industrial models, trademarks, songs, literature, symbols, names, brands,.etc.

A geographical indication is basically a notice stating that a given product originates in a given geographical area.

Registered Geographical Indications of Himachal Pradesh 

Chamba Rumal

The Rumal is a Persian word for handkerchief, a square piece of cloth, and the term
Chamba Rumal is associated with for the embroidered work done on the hand spun 'khaddar' or  a fine muslin cloth, which is in square and oblong format. „Chamba Rumal? is a pictorial craft that represents unique embroidery, which originated and flourished during 17th–18th centuries in Chamba town in the State of Himachal Pradesh. In fact „Rumal? is a Persian word which means a handkerchief.                                                            However, the embroidery work done on a hand spun khaddar or a fine muslin cloth which is in square format, is known as Chamba Rumal. The Chamba Rumal derives itinspiration from Paintings in their general layout and themes, there is a predominance of figure of deities, especially of Vishnu in his different forms.

Kangra Painting
Kangra art is the visual expression of a cultural movement with roots in a great spiritual upsurge. The principal centre of Kangra paintings was Kangra Valley where the artists worked under the patronage of the hill Rajas of Guler, Kangra and Nurpur. The new arrivals mingled with the local artists and were greatly influenced by the atmosphere of the hills and adopted themes of eternal love between Radha and Krishna. Verdant greenery of the landscape, brooks, springs were the recurrent images on the miniatures.

Bhakti cult was the driving force and the love story of Radha and Krishna was the main source of spiritual experience, which was also the base for the visual expression. In some miniatures, the blue-god Krishna is seen dancing in the lush woodlands and every maiden?s eye are drawn to him. The sentiment of love remained the inspiration and the central theme of Kangra painting. The paintings were naturalistic and employed cool, fresh colors. The colors were extracted from minerals,vegetables and possessed enamel-like luster.

Kangra tea

with perfect blend of liquor and flavour has bountiful of health nourishing natural products. Kangra tea leaves have up to 13 % catechins that are saved with high efficiency whole leaf - orthodox manufacture. These polyphenols are proven antioxidant, hypolipidimic, hypotensive, anticarcinogenic, diuretic, antidentalcariatic and antimicrobial. It also has 3 % caffeine and amino acids like theanine, glutamine, and tryptophan - the important vitalizers. Kangra tea is derived from the leaves, buds and tender stems of plants the botanical name of tea plants is Camellia sinensis or Thea sinensis grown in Kangra Valley & Jogindernagar area of Mandi District and Bhatiyat Tehsil of Chamba District is mainly produced in the southern slopes of Dhauladhar ranges of western Himalayas within the altitude range of 900m to 1400 m. Kangra Tea was registered under Geographical Indication of goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999 on 2nd April, 2012

Kinnauri Shawl

 It is also  known as Chhali in local dialect. Its average size is 42”x96” and it can vary as per body structure of ladies and gents. Ladies wear chhali toproo (Shawl of designing pattern) whereas gents wear plain
chhali.

The Kinnauri decorative designs are largely geometrical, executed in very soft and pleasing pastel shades. In Kinnauri Shawls, there is intricate use of the stylized Buddhist symbols and complex graphic patterns, consisting of hexagons (gyatongor tank) and square (palpe) etc.These devices are so profusely executed on brick red colour overwhelms the senses. The Buddhistsymbols executed in the five primary colours – white, yellow, red, green and blue represent five elements viz., water, earth, fire, ether and air respectively, while all the five colours are used in the ornamentation, reds, yellows and blues usually dominate.Kinnauri Shawl was registered under Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act,1999 on 4 December 2008.

Kullu Shawl
Kullu Shawls are originated in Kullu Valley particularly along the river valley of Beas  situated at the Himachal Pradesh. The Kullu Shawl is well known for its unique texture, yarn and typical traditional design patterns. Kinds of materials used to manufacture the Shawls are local wool, Merino wool, Angora, Pashmina, synthetic yarn, Yalk wool, cotton and other handcrafted material. The manufacture of Kullu Shawl requires winding, warping, Drafting, fitting,
weaving, clipping, and fringing labeling finishing and marketing.
A distinctive feature of Kullu shawls is the stripes or band running horizontally widthwise at the lateral ends. These bands, a few centimeters wide and varying from two to seven centimeters on each side, are decorated with a variety of patterns woven in brilliant colours like yellow, green, white of red on a black background or orange and green on a brown base.Some shawls display a flying bird motif scattered over the surface Kullu Shawl was registered under Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act,1999 on 10
December 2004.

Steps taken to promote  IPR in state

Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) plays a key role in gaining in advantageous position in the competitive technological game for economic growth of state. India enjoys a large asset of R&D personnel and infrastructure facilities. Scientists and policy makers need more information, orientation and facilities for protecting the products of intellectual prowess of Indian scientists. So steps taken to promote the IPR in Himachal ,

1. Himachal Pradesh Patent Information Centre (HPPIC) was established in 1998. Himachal Pradesh Council for Science, Technology & Environment, Shimla continues the activity of Patent Information Centre (PIC) in the state of Himachal Pradesh at Shimla with technical and financial support from Department of Science & Technology, New Delhi/PFC, TIFAC.

2. To create awareness about IPRs, especially patents, in the State and neighbouring region of this centre and enable patent searches using modern search software for the Universities, industry, government departments and R&D institutions in the State and around.
3.To facilitate universities, industry, government departments and R7D institutions for patent filing and searches, GI registration, Copyrights, Industrial design, Electronic circuit copyrights, New Plant Varieties NPV’s) etc. Building up capacity of subject specific patent landscaping in selected universities of the State.
4. To create Intellectual Property Cells in the universities specifically in Govt. Universities/Institutes of the Higher Education.
5. To analyze the patent information on a regular basis and start technology scan studies involving IPCU’s and other academic /management institutes/ laboratories under the programme to suggest new programmes for R&D based on such information.
6. Carrying out the patent searches using modern software to guide inventors in respect of patenting their inventions.
7. Training and capacity building in post patent filing activities i.e technology valuation & audit, technology licensing and technology transfer & commercialization.
8. To give special emphasis on school children, rural innovators, start-ups and block level officers of state government to bring about attitudinal changes in terms of sharing of IPRs I terms of knowledge and economic wealth through awareness programs.

9.Organisation of workshop to make colleges and students aware tp protect their invention  :

IPR cell organized a one day workshop on “Innovation & Intellectual Property Rights” in J.P. Univ. wakhnaghat, Solan . The aim of the workshop is IPR classification and issues related to IP protection in Engineering & Biotechnology Sector, to explore patents in different research areas, innovation and intellectual property generation, role of higher education in promoting IP creation, protection and commercialization.

By: Pooja Sharda