Innovation and Intellectual Property Rights (IIPR) have a significant impact on societal and economic development within the Asia-Pacific region. It is imperative to effectively use the IP system in order to retain competitiveness, maximize profits and accelerate sustainable development.
AIT Consulting recognises this necessity, and has thus launched a new Innovation and IPR unit, headed by Dr. SiddharthJabade. The unit includes activities relating to the identification and protection of inventions, system developments for routing these inventions, and capacity building to create IP awareness. All of the above prioritize the protection of in-house inventions from AIT.
One of the IIPR unit’s current programs is providing a structured innovation management process for a sustainable DEWAT project that was initiated due to a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The project is being led by Dr. ThammaratKoottatep, an Associate Professor at the Environmental Engineering and Management (EEM) department at AIT. The scope of work for the project includes integration of IP and integrated process from ideation stage. This comprises of detailed patent search, patent analysis, patent landscape, technology gap assessment, patentability evaluation, design of experiments, patent cluster design, drafting and filing of applications in Thailand and other countries.
Another of the IIPR unit’s on-going projects is focused on medical devices and related core components developed by AIT’s School of Engineering and Technology. Prior art searches and mapping, formulation of protection strategy for the inventions and drafting patent applications all currently being conducted. AIT’s other inventions, which are related to earthquake equipment, a novel, cost-effective, and green building system, facility management, and food technology, are also in the process of IP protection. One of these inventions was developed jointly with an India-based company. The IIPR division is currently assisting this company to engage in IP-related discussions facilitated by Dr. Anil Kumar Anal, an Assistant Professor at AIT’S School of Environment, Resources and Development (SERD).Internally, the IIPR division continues to seek improvement of its expertise and to further innovation and IPR services by AITC. With respect to this, personnel are being trained in-house on IP aspects as well as by the representatives of the US-based company.
