Since the adoption of TRIPS agreement in 1994, it has been emphasized that a stronger intellectual property laws will result in creation of more intellectual property in India. However, mere adoption of stronger intellectual property laws has not resulted in creation of
more intellectual property in India. The main reason being that it takes more than just intellectual property laws to create intellectual property. Intellectual property laws are very important for protecting inventions & innovations and in providing an incentive to create intellectual property. However, for an inventor or an innovator, intellectual property laws are just a legal means provided by the ‘state’ to protect their intellectual creations. Therefore, if intellectual property laws are an incentive to create from our minds, then the obvious question is what are the essential elements for creating from our minds?

Essential Elements for creating intellectual property from our minds:

• Critical thinking and freedom of speech:

If you cannot think, you can never create anything from your mind. Above all, the process of thinking has to be critical. Critical thinking allows one to think ‘out of the box’. It allows one to see and imagine what others have missed and have not imagined about it yet. It also enables to identify problems and gaps in the market and find opportunity in unexpected places or things. Freedom of speech and expression is equally important because if you are not allowed to express a different viewpoint or opinion, the possibility of creating anything new is almost zero.

• Empathy:

The ability to empathize allows an inventor or an innovator to understand the needs & requirements of the market even before the market realizes what it needs.

• Risk & failure:

Trying to create a new product or service from our mind always entails a very high risk and more often than not, it leads to failure. If individuals are scared of failure, then in most of the cases they will not even take the risk to attempt to create anything new from their mind.

• Persistence, patience & faith:

Moment of genius does not produce invention or innovation. It takes a long time, from conceptualizing the idea to finally making a product or service. Light bulb or aeroplanes were not created overnight. Above all, one needs a very high level of faith that all the hard work and labor will produce desired results.