- Require these institutions to provide detailed information about all patented innovations to the agencies that funded the underlying research.

- Grant the Government of India a royalty free license.

Any future guidelines, regulations, or legislation should also consider another provision that neither these guidelines nor the Bayh-Dole Act incorporate:

- A portion of royalties that an institution receives from patents derived through public research grants should flow back to a national public innovation fund to fund future research.

This last provision should confer much of the motivational strength of Bayh-Dole while also creating a pool for future sponsored research. Still, the key to crafting appropriate guidelines remains a focus on institutional cultures and rules of governance. Bayh-Dole worked in the United States because the primary obstacle to successful technology transfer was legislative. India’s main obstacles lie elsewhere.

A second critical motivational issue relates to India’s poor, the possessors of traditional knowledge. How can India bring the benefits of IPRs to its poor citizens living traditional lifestyles? IPRs promote growth by leveraging ideas and knowledge into securities, securities into capital, capital into investments, and investments into growth. India’s traditional communities may possess considerable knowledge unknown to modern industry—much of which has potential commercial value in the modern world. How can the government help these communities and their members attain the sorts of growth that IPRs generate? Can India’s policy advisers craft a new IP regime for traditional knowledge—a system capable of applying the same sorts of leverage to traditional knowledge that patents, copyrights, and other existing IPRs apply to contemporary science, technology, art, and expression?

Numerous volunteer organizations have laid the groundwork for such a system, and the government has invested significant resources in a catalog called the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL). But such efforts are only precursors to a new IP regime for traditional knowledge. How should such a regime be crafted and administered? Four alternatives warrant consideration: a direct national traditional knowledge analog to the patent system, an international direct traditional knowledge analog to the patent system, a blanket license for traditional knowledge, and a voluntary fund to which MNCs are encouraged to contribute. Each imposes its own costs and promises distinct benefits. Full consideration of these alternatives is a key task for the proposed think tank of IP policy advisers.

# **Recommendations**

This study examines several areas that India needs to address in the short to medium term. Work is already under way in many of these areas. Some, such as Patent Office modernization, may soon be complete. Others, notably the development of a functioning IP system for traditional knowledge, will require several rounds of proposal, notification, and comment—a process likely to take several years. Together these key needs point to two inescapable conclusions: India must fill the gaps in its statutory framework, and the government must build a think tank to house an IP policy advisory board.

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