Industry analysts have voiced the need to frame a comprehensive Patents Act in India, which can promote creativity in the software industry. This article brings forth various perceptions about the core issues that took the shape of the “Free Software Movement” in the US. It also makes an attempt to trace the impact of software patenting on creativity/ innovation, and the ethical dimensions behind it. The position of the Indian software industry in the global scenario with a focus on India’s contribution is also discussed in the article.

The growing awareness among corporates across the globe about the value addition resulting from the integration of Information Technology (IT) with that of ìbusiness strategiesî establishes the need to develop an institutional mechanism for managing the Intellectual Property (IP) of the organization in tune with the changing times. Also it points to the need for creating a sustainable competitive advantage; a proper alignment of ìpeopleís strategiesî with those of the ìbusiness goalsî of the enterprise. It also leads to ìvalue creationî, and as such the need for protecting the IP rights of the organization assumes paramount importance. Viewed in this context, Indiaís growing status as the ìIT superpower in Asiaî needs better endorsement, based on certain parameters like number of knowledge workers, contribution to IT Enabled Services (ITES) and development of software products catering to diverse fields of governance. It is also observed that as far as the business applications software is concerned, India stands third among world nations. The credit for this incredible growth partly goes to NASSCOM for spearheading the campaign for anti-piracy awareness among knowledge workers.

Software Patenting, Industry analysts, Information Technology, IT , Intellectual Property, IP, IT Enabled Services, ITES, NASSCOM, Indian software industry, creativity and innovation, human intellectualism, e-commerce, e-banking, CRM, SCM, telecom software, mobile Internet, WAP, network integration, application development.