Intellectual Property and Innovation: Changing Perspectives in the Indian IT Industry

Indian government has undertaken significant modifications in the IP regime of the country. This will lead to a realignment of business strategies by firms in several sectors. Similarly, with liberalization and globalization, new opportunities for IP creation may emerge for Indian firms. In this context, the paper attempts to document the emerging perspectives vis-�-vis IPRs in the Indian IT industry and explore factors that are driving the change in perspectives. Large IT firms and firms in high-end niche areas are proactively seeking IP based growth strategies. While they typically seek IP protection in Western nations and not so much in India, this has led them to perceive restrictive IP regimes more positively. IP regimes in the West are more relevant for IP creating Indian IT firms today but this may change in the near future as Indian market expands. Significant IP creation by MNC subsidiaries in India is also contributing to this change in perception. Survey data show that an average IT firm in India also perceives IP protection as an important appropriability mechanism, but access to markets and relevant complementary assets continue to be more important for appropriating profits from their economic activity. A positive view of the restrictive IP regimes also gets reflected in the demands of Indian industry associations for changes in the Indian law. Broadly, these changes in perceptions seem to be linked to the evolving global production networks, changing activity profile of Indian IT firms, emerging business opportunities and changes in the competitive scenario. The understanding of Indian IT firms of the complexities of IP regimes remains rudimentary and they will need significant preparation to deal with these IP related challenges.

The Unresolved Tension Between Trademark Protection and Free Movement of Goods in the European Community

Developments in computer-aided engineering and the rapid growth of computational power have made simulation-driven process and product development efficient and useful since it enables detailed evaluation of product designs and their manufacturing processes. In the context of a sheet metal component, it is vital to predict possible failure both during its forming process and its subsequent usage. Accurate numerical models are needed in order to obtain trustworthy simulation results. Furthermore, the increasing demands imposed on improved weight-to-performance ratio for many products endorse the use of high-strength steels. These steels often show anisotropic behaviour and more complex hardening and fracturing compared to conventional steels. Consequently, demand for research on material and failure models suitable for these steels has increased. In this work, the mechanical and fracture behaviour of two high-strength steels, Docol 600DP and Docol 1200M, have been studied under various deformation processes. Experimental results have been used both for material characterisation and for calibration of fracture criteria. One major requirement as concerns the fracture criteria studied is that they should be simple to apply in industrial applications, i.e. it should be possible to easily calibrate the fracture criteria in simple mechanical experiments and they should be efficient and accurate. Consequently, un-coupled phenomenological damage models have been the main focus throughout this work. Detailed finite element models including accurate constitutive laws have be used to predict and capture material instabilities. Most of the fracture criteria studied are modifications of the plastic work to fracture. Ductile tensile and ductile shear types of fracture are of particular interest in sheet metal applications. For these fractures the modification of the plastic work relates to void coalescence and void collapse, respectively. Anisotropy in fracture behaviour can be captured by the introduction of a material directional function. The dissertation consists of two parts. The first part contains theory and background. The second consists of five papers

PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF WATERMARKING APPROACH FOR VLSI DESIGN INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY PROTECTION

VLSI technology brought revolution in EDA industry. Fabrication of complicated system on a chip is possible by using reusable module called Intellectual Property (IP) core. IP cores that became an integral part of the electronic design industry influenced and had a rather significant and almost incomparable impact with respect to system designing in any chip. IP designs for any organization are imperative; contrary, IP designs that are shared can significantly cause high security risks. The majority of IP’s require time as well as effort for purposes of designing and verification, however there still remains the possibility of these being copied or minor modifications to hide proof of ownership. To overcome this problem watermarking technique is recommended for IP Core protection. Watermark insertion in multilevel increases the security of the system. In this paper the ownership information is inserted in state transition outputs of State Transition Graph employing hierarchical representation of Finite state Machine (FSM) and subsequently in the netlist level by embedding watermark in the delay between the states. Watermark insertion at two levels increases the security of the design. Signature generation uses cryptographic algorithm for enhancing the security of the IP core designs. The experimental results show that performance is improved

Innovation Offshoring:Asia's Emerging Role in Global Innovation Networks

Most analysts agree that critical ingredients for economic growth, competitiveness, and welfare in the United States have been policies that encourage strong investment in research and development (R&D) and innovation. In addition, there is a general perception that technological innovation must be based in the United States to remain a pillar of the American economy. Over the past decade, however, the rise of Asia as an important location for "innovation offshoring" has begun to challenge these familiar notions. Based on original research, this report demonstrates that innovation offshoring is driven by profound changes in corporate innovation management as well as by the globalization of markets for technology and knowledge workers. U.S. companies are at the forefront of this trend, but Asian governments and firms are playing an increasingly active role as promoters and new sources of innovation. Innovation offshoring has created a competitive challenge of historic proportions for the United States, requiring the nation to respond with a new national strategy. This report recommends that such a strategy include the following elements: output forecasting techniques ... Improve access to and collection of innovation-related data to inform the national policy debate; Address "home-made" causes of innovation offshoring by sustaining and building upon existing strengths of the U.S. innovation system; Support corporate innovation by (1) providing tax incentives to spur early-state investments in innovation start-ups and (2) reforming the U.S. patent system so it is more accessible to smaller inventors and innovators; and Upgrade the U.S. talent pool of knowledge workers by (1) providing incentives to study science and engineering, (2) encouraging the development of management, interpretive, cross-cultural, and other "soft" capabilities, and (3) encouraging immigration of highly skilled workers.Innovation Networks, Innovation Offshoring, Asia

Trojans in Early Design Steps—An Emerging Threat

Hardware Trojans inserted by malicious foundries during integrated circuit manufacturing have received substantial attention in recent years. In this paper, we focus on a different type of hardware Trojan threats: attacks in the early steps of design process. We show that third-party intellectual property cores and CAD tools constitute realistic attack surfaces and that even system specification can be targeted by adversaries. We discuss the devastating damage potential of such attacks, the applicable countermeasures against them and their deficiencies

The role of intellectual property rights in information and communication technologies

The paper starts by recapitulating the basic arguments provided by economic theory to explain the existence of the patent system. The paper then concentrates on the three important ICT industries viz., telecommunication equipment, computer hardware and semiconductor industries. The issues covered in the discussion on these industries are the technological characteristics; market structure and technology transfer experiences of selected developing countries. Even though there are some differences in these industries, what come out clearly are some similarities. These similarities pertain to concentration by firm as well as country; rapid technological changes; existence of scale economies; rising minimum efficient levels of production; entry barriers to the industries both financial and technological etc. Bresnahan, Stern and Trajtenbert [1997] show that in the computer PC market brand name and being on technological frontier help the firm in appropriating inventions. Taylor and Silberston [1973] observe that in electronics while patents by themselves are not important method of appropriation, it encourages firms to accumulate patents so that they can have an advantage in cross-licensing agreements. This finding was reiterated by Hall and Ham [1999] for semiconductor industry. They name this phenomenon "patent portfolio race". The paper briefly touches upon the issues pertaining to Internet and the problems it raises for copyright; protection of computer software and the discussion on a sui generis protection for databases. The paper concludes that the role of IPRs in ICT seems to be marginal and as prices are falling it does not seem to be attracting negative attention.Intellectual property rights, patents, information and communication technologies

The Role of Intellectual Property Rights in Information and Communication Technologies

The paper starts by recapitulating the basic arguments provided by economic theory to explain the existence of the patent system. The paper then concentrates on the three important ICT industries viz., telecommunication equipment, computer hardware and semiconductor industries. The issues covered in the discussion on these industries are the technological characteristics; market structure and technology transfer experiences of selected developing countries. Even though there are some differences in these industries, what come out clearly are some similarities. These similarities pertain to concentration by firm as well as country; rapid technological changes; existence of scale economies; rising minimum efficient levels of production; entry barriers to the industries both financial and technological etc. Bresnahan, Stern and Trajtenbert [1997] show that in the computer PC market brand name and being on technological frontier help the firm in appropriating inventions. Taylor and Silberston [1973] observe that in electronics while patents by themselves are not important method of appropriation, it encourages firms to accumulate patents so that they can have an advantage in cross-licensing agreements. This finding was reiterated by Hall and Ham [1999] for semiconductor industry. They name this phenomenon patent portfolio race. The paper briefly touches upon the issues pertaining to Internet and the problems it raises for copyright; protection of computer software and the discussion on a sui generis protection for databases. The paper concludes that the role of IPRs in ICT seems to be marginal and as prices are falling it does not seem to be attracting negative attention.intellectual property rights, Patents, information and communication technologies.

Watermarking strategies for IP protection of micro-processor cores

L. Parrilla, E. Castillo, U. Meyer-Bäse, A. García, D. González, E. Todorovich, E. Boemo, A. Lloris, "Watermarking strategies for IP protection of micro-processor cores", Proceedings of SPIE 7703, Independent Component Analyses, Wavelets, Neural Networks, Biosystems, and Nanoengineering VIII, 77030L (2010). Copyright 2010 Society of Photo‑Optical Instrumentation Engineers. One print or electronic copy may be made for personal use only. Systematic reproduction and distribution, duplication of any material in this paper for a fee or for commercial purposes, or modification of the content of the paper are prohibited.Reuse-based design has emerged as one of the most important methodologies for integrated circuit design, with reusable Intellectual Property (IP) cores enabling the optimization of company resources due to reduced development time and costs. This is of special interest in the Field-Programmable Logic (FPL) domain, which mainly relies on automatic synthesis tools. However, this design methodology has brought to light the intellectual property protection (IPP) of those modules, with most forms of protection in the EDA industry being difficult to translate to this domain. However, IP core watermarking has emerged as a tool for IP core protection. Although watermarks may be inserted at different levels of the design flow, watermarking Hardware Description Language (HDL) descriptions has been proved to be a robust and secure option. In this paper, a new framework for the protection of μP cores is presented. The protection scheme is derived from the IPP@HDL procedure and it has been adapted to the singularities of μP cores, overcoming the problems for the digital signature extraction in such systems. Additionally, the feature of hardware activation has been introduced, allowing the distribution of μP cores in a "demo" mode and a later activation that can be easily performed by the customer executing a simple program. Application examples show that the additional hardware introduced for protection and/or activation has no effect over the performance, and showing an assumable area increase.This work was partially funded by project TEC2007-68074-C02-01/MIC (Plan Nacional I+D+I, Spain). CAD tools and supporting material were provided by Altera Corp. trough University Program agreements. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the sponsors

Late Innovation Strategies in Asian Electronics Industries: A Conceptual Framework and Illustrative Evidence

This paper was published in Oxford Development Studies special issue in honor of the late Professor Linsu Kim. The paper reviews evidence on the evolution of electronics design in Asia's leading electronics exporting countries, to establish what capabilities have been developed, and to shed light on the forces that are driving "late innovation" strategies. It also reviews intellectual sources that can be used to theoretically ground these hypotheses. Using a well-known taxonomy of innovation that distinguishes incremental, modular, architectural and radical innovations, and the concept of "disruptive technologies", I argue that Asian firms may have realistic chances to engage in incremental innovations as well as in architectural innovations. However, to sustain "late innovation" strategies over a longer period, "complex system integration" capabilities are necessary to provide the missing link.