By M M Special Correspondent,

New Delhi: The Central Council for Research in Unani Medicine (CCRUM), an autonomous organization under the Ministry of AYUSH, Government of India, engaged in research and development of Unani medicines, on Tuesday signed Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) with the National Research Development Corporation (NRDC) for cooperation in the development of technologies and their successful transfer to industry for commercial exploitation and socio-economic benefits.

The MoA was signed by Prof. Asim Ali Khan, Director General, CCRUM and Dr. H Purushotham, Chairman and Managing Director, NRDC in the presence of officials from the two organizations.

According to MoA, the CCRUM would assign the NRDC its technologies including patents for the sole and absolute right of licensing and commercial exploitation. it would provide the NRDC technical and engineering know¬how relating to such technologies consisting of documented technical information on the mode of working and using the same by an industry as may be necessary to commercialize the said technologies and associated patents/ designs/ copyrights/ trademarks.

As a part of agreement, the NRDC would give wide publicity to the availability of the processes assigned to it by the CCRUM for commercial exploitation and to generate necessary market data/profiles, pre-feasibility, feasibility and project reports in order to promote speedy and effective licensing and commercialization of the technologies.

The NRDC also agreed to advise and render all possible assistance to the CCRUM to protect technologies by filing patents/ designs/ copyrights/ trademarks for licensing and the CCRUM in return would assign to the NRDC for commercialization. The MoA is valid for ten years which may be extended for further periods by mutual agreement.