SIDO - India's SME Development Agency

The Small Industries Development Organization (SIDO) is the national SME

Development Agency of India. It is a major constituent of the Ministry of Small Scale
Industries of the Government of India. A senior official of the Government of India,
who is designated as the Development Commissioner for Small Scale Industries
(DCSSI), heads SIDO. He is also the ex-officio Additional Secretary in the Ministry of
Small Scale Industries; that is, he is second in command in the bureaucratic
hierarchy of the Ministry. Set up in 1954, SIDO provides services to small industry
throughout the country by implementing a broad program of activities and services
including the following:

Entrepreneurship Development

Tool Room Services

Testing Centres

Extension Services

R&D Services

Consultancy Services

Policy Development

The strength of SIDO lies in its countrywide spread of almost 100 offices/service
centres, which employ over 2500 staff, mostly technical. SIDO partners and
networks with other national providers of support and financial services to SMEs
such as the Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), the National Small
Industries Corporation (NSIC), the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), the Reserve
Bank of India (RBI) (India's Central Bank) and relevant agencies of the Governments
of the 28 States of the country. The Government of India essentially funds SIDO but,
of late, some its activities (such as Tool Rooms, Testing Centres and Consultancy
Services) are becoming increasingly self-sustaining.

Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) and SIDO

By the late 1990s, when IP related issues were becoming important for Indian
industry, SIDO decided that educating and enabling the SMEs in the country to take
best advantage of the IP system should be one of its key priorities. In 2000, an IPR
Cell was set up at SIDO. SIDO was fortunate to have already on its rolls an officer
who, till some years ago, had been a patent examiner at the National Patent Office of
India. He became the pivot of the IPR Cell. The Cell was lean, with two part time
officers, one full time officer and secretarial assistance. The part time officers
continued to have other responsibilities but these were somewhat reduced. The
primary task of the IPR Cell was disseminating information on IPRs amongst SMEs

with a view to enable them to get a better understanding of how IPRs impact upon
business strategy and success in the marketplace. Within this broad mandate, the
Cell was required to evolve its own mode of working.

IPR Workshops- the First Practical Steps

As a first step, in 2001, the IPR Cell began conduct of daylong sensitization
workshops on IPRs for SMEs. These workshops focused on an overview of the
components of the IP system from a business perspective, with a focus on
understanding of patents, trademarks, designs and the copyright system. Typically,
each workshop comprised of four technical sessions, each for about an hour.
Presentations in two of the sessions were made by resource persons from within the
SIDO and the remaining two by well-known IPR attorneys in the country. As an
icebreaker, the first session - an introduction to IPRs for SMEs was always the key
session. Intellectual Property Rights is a big and often a frightening term for small
business. It was also a term that was largely unfamiliar in the SMEs sector in India.
Those who knew something about IPRs would invariably equate it with patents. And
patents were seen to be the concern of only the big, multinational companies or of
big publicly funded R&D institutions. Indeed, not uncommonly, the use of the term
'intellectual property' itself lead to confusion, as in many parts of India, realtors or
real estate agents/consultants are better known as 'property dealers'. For example,
when a particular IPR workshop was publicized in one town in Western India, the
largest number of inquiries came from 'property dealers' who somehow assumed that
IPRs referred to property rights in land or real estate!
It was, therefore, necessary to demystify IPRs and talk about it in a language which a
small business could understand. Thus, the first session was always almost
completely non-technical and pitched to the layman; short on details, with a clear
intent of creating interest in the subject of IPRs. Illustrations were carefully chosen;
for example, reference was made to well-known Indian brands and to local SME
success stories so that the audience could relate to the subject. Invariably, the Head
of the IPR Cell of SIDO took this session.
The second session was on patents. This is where the proceedings begin to get a little
technical but, once again, an attempt was made to link the presentation to the
practical requirements of small business. A second resource person took this session
from the IPR Cell of SIDO.
The third session (usually after lunch) was on trademarks and industrial design.
Trademarks, in particular, evoked much interest since almost every small business
had a trade mark, registered or not. A leading IP attorney took this session.

The fourth session was on copyrights and if time permitted, an introduction to

geographical indications. An IP attorney too took this session. This was followed by
an interactive session where all the speakers would be available as a panel to answer
questions raised by the audience.

Networking
For planning and implementing these workshops, SIDO networked extensively. The
Technology Information Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC), which is a
constituent of the Department of Science & Technology, invariably contributed by
making available extensive IP literature and by meeting the travel costs of many of
the external resource persons. The Local SMEs Associations and Chambers of
Commerce generally came forward to partly defray the cost for making the
organizational arrangements for the workshop as well as for ensuring adequate and
active participation of their members. WIPO made available its brochures and its
CD-ROM on IPRs for SMEs. The State Governments ensured that key decisionmakers in the State Industries Department participated in these workshops. The
local field offices of SIDO took care of all arrangements relating to logistics. The
workshops were widely publicized in each instance and planned well in advance.
Written feedback from the participants was invariably obtained after each workshop
and was used as input for improving the workshops in the future.

Funding Pattern
In general, each daylong workshop required some Indian Rupees 60,000 (some
USD1300) for the organizational arrangements. The cost included charges for hiring
the venue, publicity, lunch and tea/coffee as well as cost of replication of background
material. This cost was met through Government funds but participants were
charged a nominal fee ranging from Rs.150/- to Rs.1000/- per head depending on
the location. In some instances, where a local SME association would join hands,
then they would sponsor lunch or the stay of some resource persons. On an average
80 to 100 delegates participated in each workshop. Often external resource persons
extended their service on a voluntary basis at SIDO's request. SIDO only paid each
external speaker a token honorarium and arranged for his or her local hospitality.
This expenditure did not include the cost of travel and stay of resource persons,
which was generally about Indian Rupees 40,000.

Results of Workshops
These workshops have yielded encouraging results.
1. Apart from spreading awareness, they have helped to identify and document
success stories of SMEs in India who have succeeded in the exploitation and use
of the IP System. This has also helped in developing training material based on

local and current examples and case studies of Indian SMEs, which have profited
from effective use of the IPR system in their business strategy. A number of
entrepreneurs and managers of SMEs in India have taken steps to evaluate
options for getting their trademarks registered or seek other forms of IP
protection.
2. For instance, a women entrepreneur in the city of Calcutta who attended one such
seminar, subsequently went in for design protection for her innovative designs of
cane furniture.
3. A grassroots innovator from rural Rajasthan (a State in Western India)
approached SIDO for assistance in filing a patent for an improved agriculture
implement. His application for grant of patent is currently with the New Delhi
Branch of the Indian Patent Office.
4. Some other beneficiaries/participants of the workshops have also initiated steps
for registering their trademarks.
5. Importantly, these workshops have helped SIDO to reach out to other
Government agencies and NGOs working on IP issues. It has also inspired many
State Governments and others to come up with similar programs. For example,
the northern State of Haryana is currently (September 2003) drawing up its own
plans for running similar workshops and creating a Patent Facilitation Cell to
assist entrepreneurs for acquiring IP protection.
6. So far, beginning from 2001, over 25 such Workshops have been organized in
different parts of India, which cover 20 of the 28 States of the country. Each
venue was a different city and each experience was different. While in some
instances the response was overwhelming and registration had to be stopped for
logistical reasons, in others the participation had to be actively mobilized. In some
cases, one program would be followed by requests for many more at other nearby
locations.

Contribution of WIPO
Collaboration with WIPO became a regular phenomenon soon after the IPR Cell was
set up. Two officers of SIDO have participated in three-day training programs
organized by WIPO in Thailand and the Republic of Korea. IPR literature and CDROMs on IP for SMEs developed by WIPO, which were made available free of charge
to SIDO, were distributed at these workshops. Speakers from WIPO have
participated in only three of the 25 workshops organized by SIDO. In addition, in its
3rd National Convention of Small Scale Industries in August, 2002, an hour and a
half long presentation was made by a senior representative of the SMEs Division of
WIPO to some 1,200 representatives of SME associations and decision makers from
all over the country. On its part, SIDO has contributed to the case studies developed
in the country to the case studies section of the Web site of the SMEs Division of
WIPO.

Next Steps
After the first set of workshops in 2001, in 2002 it is felt necessary to also take up
industry specific workshops, since general one-day sensitization workshops can only

achieve a limited objective. This meant an extra effort for customization of awareness
and training material and industry-specific capacity building of resource
persons/trainers. It also means varying the emphasis on different types of IPRs as
their importance varies differs from industry to industry. For instance, in the
pharmaceutical industry, patents seem to be far more important than industrial
designs. On the other hand, in the highly cost-conscious and competitive Fast
Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) industry, branding (trademarks and designs) is
apparently far more important than patents. To begin with, the toy industry and the
pharmaceutical industry were taken up, as these were two segments of the Indian
industry where national industry associations were proactive. In respect of toys,
considering the state of the industry, the focus was on trademarks and industrial
design, while in pharmaceuticals, the focus was primarily on patents and to a lesser
extent, on trademarks. For toys, it helped that a UNIDO assisted national program
for the development of the toy Industry is concurrently being implemented by SIDO.
Along with general and industry specific workshops, steps were initiated for
improving the quality of literature made available to entrepreneurs. With the prior
permission of the WIPO, seven articles on the Web site of the SMEs Division of
WIPO were republished and placed in an attractive folder which was made available
to every participant in the workshops organized in late 2001 onwards. To make sure
that the message in respect of IPRs reached out to people who needed it, all the seven
articles were translated into Hindi and printed in the same manner as those in
English. Networking was in evidence here as well, as the services of the Department
of Official Languages of the Government of India were utilized for the translation.
SIDO's web portal carried its own write up on IP issues with links to WIPO's SMEs
Web site.

Future Strategy
SIDO will continue to organize general and industry specific workshops on IPRs, as
in a country of India's size, 25 workshops are completely inadequate. The industry
specific workshops will tend to be in or near corresponding industry clusters. In
cooperation with the SMEs Division of WIPO, action has been initiated (in
September 2003) for customizing WIPO's Guide on Trademarks for SMEs ("Making
a Mark") , based on Indian trademark law, practice, and illustrations/examples. On
the anvil are workshops of 'training of trainers so that in each of its offices, SIDO is
able to position at least one officer who is IP savvy. This is likely to be a residential
program of one-week duration involving master trainers from WIPO, SIDO's
resource person and external faculty such as P attorneys and University Professors
of IPRs in India. A national workshop on issues of IP evaluation and valuation,
acceptance of IP as collateral and financing the creation of IP assets is also envisaged
in early 2004.

SIDO's endeavor for creating IPR awareness is part of a larger plan for the
internationalization and enhancing the competitiveness of Indian SMEs in a
globalizing marketplace. Other elements of this plan include upgrading technology,
superior infrastructure, adoption of quality systems, marketing support and credit
facilitation.