Every April 26, we celebrate World Intellectual Property Day. The background to this is the focus on intellectual property rights. The objective is to learn about the role that intellectual property rights (patents, trademarks, industrial designs, copyright) play in encouraging innovation and creativity. It’s a question of powering change, for women in innovation and creativity. And this day puts the right emphasis on this point.
This year, the aim is to explore how innovation is making our lives healthier, safer and more comfortable. In the process , it works around two prominent ‘P’s – problems, transforming it into another ‘p’- progress!
It can be noticed how the intellectual property system supports innovation by attracting investment, rewarding creators, encouraging them to develop their ideas. This way, it assures that new knowledge is freely available, opening up the way for tomorrow’s innovators.
This year’s World Intellectual Property Day campaign celebrates the brilliance, ingenuity, curiosity and courage of the women who are driving change in our world and shaping our future. #WIPD celebrates that creative force.
Women have emerged as strong contenders. It is seen that women come up with game-changing inventions and creations that transform lives. This process also advances human understanding from astrophysics to nanotechnology and from medicine to artificial intelligence and robotics.
In fact, women are re-imagining culture, challenging the limits of artistry and creative expression in a range of scenarios – in the movies, animation, music, fashion, design, sculpture, dance, literature, art and more, thus drawing us into new worlds of experience and understanding.
Most importantly, women around the globe are powering change in our world. And, their “can do” attitude is truly an inspiration! And their remarkable achievements pass on an invaluable legacy to the young girls today, aspiring them along the right lines, to become the inventors and creators of tomorrow.
More than ever before, women are taking up leadership roles and making their voices heard in business, science, technology and the arts. With women and men working shoulder to shoulder, we can improve our ability to enrich our shared cultural wealth and develop effective solutions to alleviate poverty, boost global health, and safeguard the environment.
The time is ripe to reflect on ways to ensure increasing engagement of women and girls globally, in innovation and creativity.
This year’s World Intellectual Property Day celebration is an opportunity to highlight how the intellectual property (IP) system can support innovative and creative women (and all others too) in their quest to bring their amazing ideas to market.
In the evolving times today, we notice that every day, ordinary people are producing extraordinary new things to change the world. And, innovation is making our lives healthier, safer, and comfortable many times over. Innovation knows no limits, (turning problems into progress), pushing boundaries! And, it is critical that women entrepreneurs give the right focus and status to the intellectual property created by them and safeguard it also.
So, let the awareness of intellectual property creation spread far and wide, so that women entrepreneurs are protected. Let’s start now!
Avtar Madan
Himanshu
Shree Lahiri
