It’s a patently different kind of radio. It does not beam music or jingles but packs in all that you may need to know about IP (intellectual property) in the form of news, information, issues, interviews or insights from across the world.

Radio Sinapse is a week-old, free online audio channel from IP services firm Brain League, and is already getting about 45 hits a day from listeners, mostly from India, says Dr Kalyan C. Kankanala, co-founder and Chief Knowledge Officer, of Brain League IP Services P Ltd. The web radio aims to catch the ears of busy research and development (R&D) heads and IP professionals from ‘happening’ sectors of inventions — such as information technology, telecommunications, electronics and pharmaceuticals - and give them IP news and interviews in capsules of 10 minutes.

From weekly updates now, it is to be improved into daily webcasts with lighter and more inputs.

He has roped in his Australia-based medical practitioner friend, Dr Sunil Casabianca, who also is IP-savvy, to read the news and programmes the IP radio. “An IP radio is probably the first of its kind in India,” Dr Kankanala told Business Line.

“This is part of BrainLeague’s mission to spread IP awareness in the country. We started with a blog, we now have a radio and next, we plan to take the video mode on the YouTube through the Sinapse brand.”

He added, “There is so much information coming out each day. I get nearly 300 Google alerts on IP. The blog or the radio is not our core activity but all this is meant to help IP professionals who have little time but need to keep pace with what is happening in the world of intellectual property.”

The Brain League/Sinapse site features debates on current raging IP issues, and hopes to catch the eye of policy makers in the Government and corporate decision-makers. Hot topics include the copyright amendment Bill that is before Parliament, with all its attendant issues, patent settlement cases among pharma companies; open source software; the fights of movie producers and directors - (recall 3 Idiots?) and the anti-circumvention law over DVDs. “We will be moving into more intensive activities and programming,” he said.

The 30-member Brain League, which claims it was the first company to offer professional services to change the way companies look at IP, today advises 220 corporate clients on how to generate, manage and protect their innovations, as also how to make money out of them. The clients are from biosciences, electronics and telecom, manufacturing and IT industries. It also offers online courses to professionals.

According to Dr Kankanala, a PhD in patent law and alumnus of the National Law School of India University, the IP scene has changed considerably since 2004, when Brain League was seeded in the IIM-Bangalore campus with Rs 5 lakh.

“Those days people asked us questions [about what this field is about.] Today, they have no doubt that IP gives them the competitive advantage. They now tell me, ‘I have protected so much IP, how do I encash it’?”