The Centre has been taking all necessary measures to spread awareness on the significance of intellectual property rights in protecting and monetizing their creative inventions, a senior official said on Wednesday.

Addressing a webinar on 'From Minds to Market: IP Exploitation by MSMEs', organised by FICCI, Rajendra Ratnoo, Joint Secretary, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) stressed on the need for Indian SMEs to increasingly protect their innovative products.

G.R. Raghavendra, Joint Secretary, Law and Justice, emphasised that India's thriving creative industry must become increasingly aware of the copyright law provisions like economic and moral rights, ownership and royalty provisions, the legal remedies, enabling them to benefit by monetisation and distribution of their creative works.

Narendra Sabharwal, Chairman, FICCI IPR Committee & Former Deputy Director General, WIPO, said that globally small and medium enterprises have been the driving force behind many innovations.

Successful SMEs have been able to reinforce an idea to create a product that consumers wanted, utilised IP rights to protect it and created value for their business, he said. Underlining the inherent innovative abilities of India's small and medium businesses, Sabharwal emphasised that MSMEs must be encouraged and supported to increasingly adapt IP in business operations, especially considering the emerging technological developments.