The Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT-B) recorded a 68.5% jump in its intellectual property applications in 2020-21, even when the Covid-19 pandemic closed. ‘institute and affected grants. The total number of intellectual property applications, including patents and trademarks, rose from 156 last year to 263 this year.
The institute also recorded a 45% increase in the number of Indian patents filed this year compared to last year. Researchers at the institute filed nearly three times as many patent applications in the United States compared to last year.
In 2020-21, the institute filed 141 Indian patents and 17 U.S. patents. Of these, 110 Indian and eight U.S. patents have been granted. In comparison, in the previous year 97 patent applications were filed from India and six from the US.
This increase in the number of patent applications is despite the fact that the Covid-19 pandemic closed the campus and affected regular research work. Last year, the premiere institute also saw a significant drop in research funding, according to data revealed by Subhasis Chaudhuri, director of the IIT-B, during the 59th annual call held on Saturday. For the second year in a row, the annual call was held in virtual reality mode with virtual avatars from students receiving Chaudhuri virtual avatar titles and lead guest Geoffrey Hinton, professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, chief scientific advisor to the Vector Institute and vice president. president and fellow of Google engineering.
The institute completely closed campus on March 28 last year as the Covid-19 pandemic raged in the city. On April 1, an early summer vacation was announced. However, on June 25, the institute stated that the entire fall semester will be held online to ensure student safety. The new group of engineering students was introduced online. Since then, almost all teaching and academic activities, except research work, are conducted online. The pandemic also affected the institute’s receipt of research grants, which fell by almost 14% compared to ₹331.24 million between 2019-20 and ₹285 million in 2020-21.
“Despite the pandemic, research and development activities at the institute maintained an accelerated pace,” said Chaudhuri, who presented a report on the institute’s achievements throughout the year.
“We are happy to see that, despite the pandemic, our students did not have to suffer academically. The training that our students received will definitely see them taking on leadership roles, as always, in the academic and corporate world, thus contributing to the needs of our country, ”he added.
A total of 2,501 degrees were awarded to 2,289 students, in addition to 378 doctoral degrees. The virtual event was attended by Pawan Goenka, retired general manager and CEO of the Mahindra group and chairman of the governing board of the IIT-B.
“I can no longer assume that fascism is a thing of the past”
The main guest at the ceremony, Geoffrey Hinton, professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, chief scientific advisor at the Vector Institute and vice president and engineering fellow of Google, asked students to defend the truth in the face of political attempts to suppress it. the.
Hinton, who delivered the keynote address, said: “The incredible technology we have today is the result of curiosity-based research with no religious or ideological restrictions. My generation has just assumed that this is how things should be and that humanity would never again allow religious authority or political expediency to dominate scientific discoveries, but now I think we cannot take that for granted, as we can no longer assume that fascism is a thing of the past. “
He added: “I believe that highly selective and extremely well-educated students like you have a moral duty to defend the truth in the face of political attempts to suppress it.”