Dr Raju Narayana Swamy Releases New Book on Intellectual Property Rights

Dr Raju Narayana Swamy, a senior IAS officer and scholar, has authored a new book on intellectual property rights, drawing considerable attention for its wide-ranging scope. Titled Intellectual Property Rights: Musings of an Amateur Enthusiast, the book was released by Somnath Ghosh, Consul General of India, at a function held in Chicago.

The book explores a broad spread of themes within the IP domain, including patent misuse, the interface between blockchain, artificial intelligence and IP, performers' rights, utility models, and the criteria for patentability as they vary across different countries. It also examines a number of landmark judgments from multiple jurisdictions relating to intellectual property law.

This marks his 37th published work. His earlier body of writing includes the travelogue Shantimanthram Muzhangunna Thazhvarayil, which won the Sahitya Akademi Award, and Neelakkurinji: Oru Vyazhavattathile Vasantham, for which he received the State award for Children's Literature.

He was in the news recently for having performed a record 38 assignments as Central Observer for the Election Commission of India, including serving as an International Observer during the 2018 Zimbabwe elections. In 2021, he was conferred the Leonardo da Vinci Fellowship by the Center for Intellectual Property and Innovation Policy at George Mason University, in recognition of his scholarship in intellectual property law.

He was also honoured with the 2018 Satyendra K. Dubey Memorial Award by IIT Kanpur for his anti-corruption work, and previously received the Homi Bhabha Fellowship in cyber law — a distinction that placed him among eminent past recipients such as Thanu Padmanabhan.

Over the course of his career, Dr Swamy has played a significant part in implementing key policies and programmes in rural development, education and health, and is recognised for his proactive, technology-driven approach to governance, citizen engagement, transparency and accountability.

An alumnus of IIT Madras, where he earned a B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering, Dr Swamy also holds a PhD in Law from Gujarat National Law University. He topped the 1991 batch of the IAS at the all-India level, and additionally holds a PG Diploma from the National Law School, Bangalore, and an LLM from NLU Delhi — both completed with gold medals.