Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law

The Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law or RGSOIPL is a Law school based at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, in collaboration with the George Washington University Law School, Washington DC. [ [http://www.iitkgp.ac.in/departments/home.php?deptcode=RG Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur ] ]

Introduction

It is engaged in the teaching and research of law with special emphasis on Intellectual Property Law. It commenced academic activities from the Academic Year 2006-07, on 20^th July 2006. The school is named after late Rajiv Gandhi, former Prime Minister of India.

Background

The school is the brainchild of Vinod Gupta, CEO of InfoUSA and Life Fellow of IIT Kharagpur, who proposed its setting up on 28 March 2005 and also promised a grant of one million US dollars to that end. The Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India accepted the proposal and announced a matching grant to RGSOIPL. The school of was formally inaugurated by the Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court, VS Sirpurkar, at the Kalidas auditorium in IIT Kharagpur on 23 July 2006, 3 days after the school started off with its flagship program.

Relevance

Because of increasing relevance of Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), RGSOIPL will offer program to engineers, technologists and MBAs and train them to be IP attorneys subsequent to a 3 year program on the lines of the western countries. RGSOIPL will seek to fulfil the immediate need for a large number of Indian lawyers well-versed in intellectual property law whose services are needed to protect the intellectual property generated by Indian scientists, engineers and technologists in the sunrise sectors such as biotechnology, nanotechnology, bioinformatics, information Technology and computer software. Many eminent personalities in the legal and technology field have visited the school and delivered lectures, viz. Justice Anand Mohan Bhattacharya, Justice A.K Ganguli (Chief Justice of Madras High Court), Justice Pratap Ray ( [Judge] of Calcutta High Court), Prabuddha Ganguli, Rodney D. Ryder, eminent technology and media lawyer, Justice Malviya ( [Former Judge] , Allahabad High Court),Barrister Jayant Mitra, Barrister Bimal Kumar Chatterji ( both from Calcutta High Court) Justice Umesh Chandra Banerjee [http://www.supremecourtcaselaw.com/jus_banerjee.htm] (Judge, Supreme Court of India) etc. Under the guidance of Prof. N.L Mitra (Director, NLS Bangalore and Founder Vice Chancellor, National Law School Jhodhpur), it will be reaching the realm of success by linking both technology and law.

Collaboration

George Washington University Law School, Washington DC will assist IIT Kharagpur in formulating curriculum, selecting and training faculty for RGSOIPL. George Washington University will also have student and faculty exchange programs with RGSOIPL.

Functioning

The Law School is located in the premises of Vinod Gupta School of Management and will start functioning from the academic year 2006. The School presently will have two programmes
# Six-Semester, Three-Year Full-Time residential LL.B. Programme leading to the Degree of Bachelor of Law with specialization in Intellectual Property Rights, at par with the LL.B. Degree requirements of the Bar Council of India.
# Three-Semester, One and a Half Year Post-Graduate Part-Time non-residential Diploma Programme leading to a Diploma in Intellectual Property Law. First batch consists 14 students.

Future Programs

Another 20 students would be taken into the IIT Kharagpur's Bhubaneswar center in 2007. IIT Kharagpur is also planning to start an integrated B.Tech.-LL.B. course in 2009.

Notes

External links

* [http://iitkgp.ac.in/ IIT Kharagpur Homepage]
* [http://iitkgp.ac.in/departments/home.php?deptcode=RG Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law Homepage]