MUMBAI, 12 January 2021: UPL Ltd. has won the Sixth CII Industrial Intellectual Property Awards aimed at recognizing and celebrating enterprises that have embraced IP generation and protection to fuel their business and economic growth.
UPL Ltd. has always put the farmers’ needs first and created products and services around fulfilling their requirements.
UPL has won the award in the category of Best Patent Portfolio, Large (Lifesciences/Pharma) for its pioneering Intellectual property (IP) research and innovation. An example of UPL’s major research and innovation include sustainable products such as Zeba and services such as Adarsh Farm Services which have proven successful at the grassroots level.
Dr. Vishal Sodha accepted the award at a virtual ‘CII International Conference on IPR & CII Industrial IP Awards’ on behalf of UPL during the felicitation ceremony. \
He stated “At UPL, our focus is completely on sustainable development including efficient utilization of the natural resources and adapting and building resilience to climate change. All of which bears testimony to our ability to make products and services available to farmers; that help fuel the new age of farming – Farming 3.0 around the globe. At UPL, we are proud to put the farmers’ needs first and create products and services around their requirements. Our relentless focus on innovation has helped us to launch new products every year. UPL holds over 1,500 granted patents and pending 2,500 applications that satisfy farmers’ needs across geographies”
The purpose of these CII-IP awards is to encourage organizations to foster a culture of Intellectual Property and its commercialization, bring the achievements of private enterprises into the public domain, set up linkages with academic and research institutions in India and abroad, inform the government about IP-driven enterprises and engage such enterprises in policy-making exercises.
Earlier during the year, in November 2020, UPL was unveiled as the recipient of the annual South and South East Asia Innovation Awards at the Innovation Forum held by Clarivate Plc using patent data from Derwent World Patents Index (DWPI) and Derwent Patent Citations Index (DPCI). It also bagged the prestigious accolade in the field of Intellectual Property Rights at an event organized by Social Talks and recognized by NITI Aayog Darpan, India and was recognized for 'Excellent Contribution in the Field of Patents'.
The company has also won CII’s Industrial IP Award in Patent and Trademark Large Enterprises Categories in 2019 and was also recognized as the top Indian Company for Creating Global Brand by Indian Patent Office 2019. UPL was awarded the prestigious WIPO Users Trophy by the World Intellectual Property Organization, Geneva. All of these recognitions is a testimony to UPL’s pursuit to create agriculture products and services to support farmers globally.
UPL’s Chief Technology Officer, Adrian Percy stated “We continuously strive to make our formulations and processes environmentally friendly, using progressive innovation. ZEBA, for instance, is a granular soil applied starch-based technology, working much like a sponge. Distributed in the rooting zone, each micro granule is able to absorb many times its original weight in water, and release it back to plants as and when they need it. This water management and interaction with essential water-soluble nutrients, is the key to reducing the amount nutrients being lost into the environment, thereby reducing any negative impact on environmental and human health.”
