The Ownership Dilemma In Publicly Funded Semiconductor Innovation: Reassessing Licensing And Layout-Design Rights Under India's DLI Scheme
Rajakulasekharan. V, Tamil Nadu National Law University
ABSTRACT
India's Design Linked Incentive (DLI) Scheme and India Semiconductor Mission have increased the publicly funded semiconductor design innovation, yet the ownership and licensing of the semiconductor layout- design rights generated through such funding remains largely subjected to uncertainty. The ownership and licensing of the semiconductor layout- design rights generated through such funding remains largely uncertain. In so far as the intellectual property rights arising from semiconductor innovation have been explored within the contemporary scholarship relating to India's semiconductor sector, this has revolved primarily around the domain of industrial policy, manufacturing incentives, and technological sovereignty while the allocation and commercialization of such government-backed SLD have received meagre attention.
Adopting a doctrinal and comparative legal methodology, the study evaluates whether existing Indian IP regime, more specifically the Semiconductor Integrated Circuits Layout-Design Act 2000, would suffice in adjudicating ownership and licensing rights that arise from public funded semiconductor innovation. Focusing on the new age DLI assisted chip- design ventures, this paper assesses whether Indian law provides certainty regarding ownership, commercialization, and public-interest safeguards for SLD. This paper advocates that although India has laid down a special 'sui generis' system for protection of layout-designs in the semiconductor sector, the existing statutory framework fails to determine who owns it and licensing obligations when semi-conductor layout design rights emerge from publicly funded innovations. By taking the Bayh–Dole framework as an example the study calls for a semiconductor specific ownership and licensing regime which combines innovator ownership, government march-in rights, and public interest licensing obligations.
Such a framework would more likely align with India’s intellectual property regime with the objective of DLI Scheme and the India semiconductor mission.
Keywords: Publicly Funded Intellectual Property, Semiconductor Sovereignty, Innovation Ownership, Government March-In Rights, Design Linked Incentive Scheme
