As reported yesterday, Indian companies have started growing and maturing in terms of monetizing their intellectual property. Tata Steel which spends 1.5 % of total revenue in research and development is contemplating to earn money by licensing its intellectual property to other steel companies. At moment, Tata Steel is the world’s seventh largest steel maker and is planning to exploit 237 granted patents in India and other globally granted patents.
TATA STEEL is at the moment reviewing their patent portfolio and is certainly planning to license its patented technologies.
It is also believe that other group companies like TATA MOTORS are also contemplating to license its patent portfolio.
Indian coal is considered to be inferior since it has very high ash content. While bringing down the ash content, around 75% of the mined coal goes waste. The technology is expected to reduce wastage to 30%, thereby doubling the amount of coal that can be used. Tata Steel is working on a new technology that aims to double the useable coal from Indian mines, thereby reducing dependence on imported coal. If successful, the company will consider making the technology available to other companies and license its intellectual property.
Ratan Tata, chairman of Tata group said, “We have to be a group that innovates, that starts creating intellectual property that breaks new ground.” The group is now trying to create positive tension amongst its various businesses by measuring innovation on three issues: strategy, robustness of process and culture of innovation. “We want to develop a portfolio of big innovations not just incremental ones in product, process, service or business models,” said Sunil Sinha, chief group quality management services of Tata Sons.
This is certainly good sign for Indian companies. Rather then engaging only in filing patents, companies like Biocon and TATA are licensing its intellectual property. This will surely be generating passive income resource for the companies.
