Chaitanya Singh,
Founder & Managing Partner,
Illuminati Consulting Services

By Chaitanya Singh

Founder & Managing Partner,
Illuminati Consulting Services

A Brief Introduction

I had a very rewarding and satisfying association with CIPRA, NLSIU. The Ministry of HRD, Govt. of India had initiated an Intellectual Property Awareness Programme in collaboration with NLSIU, Bangalore. CIPRA would engage me to speak and deliver lectures on intellectual property rights at numerous seminars held at various universities.

I have worked with Mr. Amarjit Singh Chandhiok who has held the position of Additional Solicitor General of India. I used to help him in handling various kinds of legal issues at different courts.

In terms of corporate journey, I have worked with companies like Hewlett Packard, Oracle, MphasiS, etc. and have been involved in the closure of big deals. When I started my own legal practice, I made a conscious decision to work primarily with startup companies. This move was aimed at helping startups in their nascent stage and help them identify, protect and enforce their Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) so that I could contribute towards economic growth and nation building through these companies.

Nation Building

Bangalore has a fabulous ecosystem of startups. Upon my return to India, instead of working with a big law firm, I decided to work with the startups as I felt that these companies needed my services much more than large companies with deep pockets.

I felt that the startups with limited resources may not be able to engage the services of expensive law firms. In my assessment, I believed that failure on the part of startups to engage competent legal personnel would not only result in humongous risk exposure due to intentional/unintentional  infringement of IPR of other companies but would also stem their growth as they may not be able to capitalize and leverage on their ideas, inventions and innovations.

Accordingly, I decided to render legal services to startups at affordable rates so that they may focus on their core activities and concentrate on R&D rather than spend their time and energy in handling legal issues. The success of these startups is bound to give a fillip to the economy and it has indeed been a pleasure to educate and guide them regarding the potential risk exposure, ways to mitigate the risks, and to make them learn and adopt the best practices in running businesses and monetization of IPR thereby aiding in the creation of wealth for the nation.

New India

Frankly speaking my vision of New India is to be Old India again; India that used to be referred to as “The Golden Bird”. We had a very progressive society based on scientific temper and inquiry.

In my opinion, we need to have an educational system that encourages children to think freely, to question fearlessly, and to seek answers and solutions. This will create leaders rather than followers and will perhaps lead to an exponential increase in independent business ventures.

We need to have an ecosystem wherein the spirit of entrepreneurship is celebrated and people are not scared of starting businesses. We must provide adequate support structure to small businesses in terms of financial, moral and legal support. We must increase the ease of doing business so that the enterprises may focus more on businesses rather than compliances.

How I See Myself

I grew up in a joint family and learnt the values of caring and sharing as a way of life. I have a high degree of empathy and I am a great listener which makes me a keen learner as well. I am always willing to help people in whatever little ways I possibly can. I am a man of unimpeachable integrity and I am extremely gregarious and sociable person with an amiable disposition.

I am a thorough family person and love to strike a proper work-life balance. I maintain that we must respect and value relationships and be prepared to invest in nurturing, maintaining and passing on inheritance of relationship to the next generation. Once we lose someone, no amount of money or remorse can bring the person back, so I firmly believe that we must value people around us while they are around.

Inspiration in Life

I value a virtuous life more than anything else in the world. The feeling that I have been able to make some difference to someone’s life and existence is immensely rewarding and satisfying.

Both my parents, parents-in-law, wife and children are highly respected in the family and society. They are perfect role models to emulate. I am always inspired by their accomplishments and my profound desire to help and improve the condition of others is a tremendous motivator.

My Success Story

With the help of technology and ever-shrinking digital divide, more and more people have access to knowledge and technology. New ideas, inventions and innovations and other intangibles in the form of IPR have become increasingly significant in terms of value, and have enabled people who lack traditional resources but possess disruptive and innovative ideas, to dream and achieve big as entrepreneurs.

I made a conscious endeavor to help such smaller entities who more often than not lacked the resources to engage the attorneys from expensive law firms. I chose to provide customized and personalized legal services to such startups at affordable rates. These were closely knit companies and it helped me build an instant rapport with the company and its management.

I helped these companies in mitigation of risk exposure by advising them appropriately, identifying the IPR they created, securing their IPR through registration, and further helping them in enforcement of their IPR. This helped these companies in their growth and expansion. The beauty of the relationship was that it would not be merely transactional in nature. I would connect with the companies at a different level altogether and it has truly been an amazing experience to be a part of their journey and to share the joy of their success.

Reforms in My Field of Work

At a generic level, I think we need reforms to increase the degree of certainty in terms of punishment; and swiftness in meting out justice. We need to have clearly defined timelines within which the cases must be resolved because justice delayed is justice denied. The system of appeal needs to be made more stringent and only rarest of rare cases should qualify for an appeal. We can consider putting a limit on the number of appearances that a lawyer can make in a calendar year. This will ensure more participation and every working professional will have some cases, and every appearing counsel will have more time to devote on each case that he/she takes up.

In the realm of IPR, to be specific, lack of awareness regarding laws and regulations is the main problem. The solution lies in conducting extensive workshops to educate and sensitize research scientists at various centres of excellence in academia,  companies, and R&D centres which have the potential of creating new ideas, inventions and innovations. Various programmes launched by the government like giving aid to incubation centres on college campuses and the National IPR Policy are excellent initiatives. I am sure this will help create an ecosystem where technology transfer and cross-licensing of technology will prosper and lead to tremendous economic growth in the times to come.

Better India

Value-based education and character-building exercises at school level to inculcate right set of values in the future generation is bound to go a long way in improving the condition of India. This will reduce the corruption and moral turpitude which are increasingly becoming the bane of the entire mankind.

More awareness about legal rights will go a long way in reducing exploitation, inequalities and power differentials in the society.

IPR is a great tool for economic growth and technological advancement. A robust IPR regime will motivate inventors and innovators to invest in R&D as they will have certainty regarding the returns on their investment. Also, once such technology gets into the public domain it may be used by anyone free of cost and this will lead to further technological developments.