university-industry knowledge transfer: A “Bayh Dole” FOR India?

The “India Project” at the George Washington University Law School presents Mr Kapil Sibal, the Hon’ble Minister for Science and Technology, India.

PROGRAM (17 SEPT, 2007)

  • 4.00 pm: Welcome Address
  • Dean Frederick M Lawrence
  • 4.15 pm to 5.00 pm: “Univ-Industry Knowledge Transfer: A Bayh Dole for India?”
  • Hon’ble Minister Kapil Sibal
  • 5.00 pm to 5.30 pm: Question/Answers
  • 5.30 pm: Vote of Thanks
  • Dean Susan Karamanian
  • 5.40-6.30 pm: Reception

HON’BLE MINISTER KAPIL SIBAL: A PROFILE

Mr Kapil Sibal is the Hon’ble Minister for Science and Technology and Earth Sciences in India.

He began his political career in 1998 when he was elected to the Rajya Sabha (Upper House of Parliament). Due to his ready wit and eloquence, he was designated as the Congress Party Spokesperson for the 1999 and 2004 General Elections. A staunch believer in openness and transparency, Minister Sibal launched a web portal for his constituency to enable the general public to access him more readily.

Prior to embarking on his political career, Minister Sibal was an eminent Supreme Court lawyer who argued a variety of landmark cases pertaining to constitutional, criminal and commercial law. Recognising his sharp legal acumen, the government appointed him Additional Solicitor General of India in 1989. That he was extremely popular with the Bar is borne out by the fact that he went on to be elected as the President of Supreme Court Bar Association thrice. His passion for social causes saw him lead the Indian delegation to the Human Rights Commission to Geneva in 1991. He now serves in his personal capacity on the Board of International AIDS Vaccine Initiative and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s India AIDS Initiative.

He is very committed to building bridges between the US and India in science and technology. Indeed, his relationship with the US goes back to the 1970’s when he obtained an LLM from Harvard Law School and thereafter worked with a New York law firm for a couple of years. In a meeting with US Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, he is said to have famously remarked:

“A very long time ago, in 1492 Christopher Columbus started on his journey to discover India and landed in the Americas. And unfortunately, since 1492 to the beginning of the new millennium, the United States wasn’t able to discover what India was all about. I think that it does credit to the two countries that at the beginning of this millennium, this process of discovery has begun”.

In the short time since he took office, Minister Sibal has made great strides in helping place Indian science and technology on the global map. Note-ably, he was the first-ever Indian Minister to visit the Indian station at Antarctica, as a result of which, a third Indian station is being established there. He is now the key force behind a proposed legislation that seeks to encourage university-industry technology transfer in India.

THE INDIA PROJECT

GW Law faculty and alumni launched the “India Project” in 2003 with the aim of promoting dialogue in intellectual property (IP) issues between the United States and India. The Law School’s expertise in intellectual property law, coupled with the recent boom in India’s technology sector, has shaped the Project’s initial work. In just two years, the India Project has sponsored four conferences in the major Indian cities of New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, and Hyderabad. Attracting legal scholars, judges, lawyers, business leaders, and government officials from around the world, the conferences have heightened awareness in India of the benefits of a strong IP law regime.

The India Project has also been the driving force for the Law School’s recent agreement with the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology-Kharagpur to assist in the development of the new Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law in Kharagpur, India.

The 2007 IP Summit, co sponsored with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), continued the tradition of building bridges between the US and India in intellectual property issues by taking to India a stellar team of respected judges, academics and policy makers from around the world including Judge Randall R. Rader of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, Judge Ryoichi Mimura, Intellectual Property High Court of Japan, Judge Ronald Whyte, Federal District Judge, Northern District of California, Sir Hugh Laddie, Former Chief Patent Judge of UK, Ignacio de Castro, Head, Information and External Relations Section, WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center, Associate Dean Susan Karamanian, and Professor Martin Adelman of the George Washington University Law School.

For more details on the India Project, please see <