01/04/2022
N.J. Thomas (67), a small farmer based in puliyanmala, Idukki Dist. of Kerala innovated two machine varieties namely Cardamom Washing Machine in the year 1994 and Cardamom Polishing Machine in the year 2000.
As being an active cardamom farmer, he spends most time observing and studying cardamom and its related problems. At that time, he faced problems related to cardamom washing and polishing, as all of it was done manually. Therefore, to tackle this drudgery he came up with an innovative idea that led him to set the path to the mentioned innovations.
During this period, the Peermade Development Society (PDS) played a vital role in the state of Kerala as a scouting agency under National Innovation Foundation (NIF) – GoI. For the exposure of the machine varieties, Mr. N .J Thomas submitted an application related to his innovations to PDS. The PDS scouting program was known by the name LAND to LAB and vice versa. On welcoming the application, the PDS scouting team –T J James – Advisor to PDS, Mr. Sivaji K. P, - PDS Core Engineer & Mr. Stebin K Sebastian- Co-ordinator - NIF Project & Mr. Arun S Chandran- PDS Core Engineer, visited the innovator and had a deep look into his innovations. The raw data was collected & documented. After the core scouting procedure, the official data was submitted to the NIF-GoI. Also as part of the scouting program, PDS aid the innovators to acquire a patent from the Intellectual Property- GoI. These innovations were also submitted to obtain Intellectual Property Rights. (IPR).
On the IPR submission, the patent has been granted to the patentee for one of his inventions entitled CARDAMOM WASHING APPARATUS.
Apart from this PDS has aided many other innovators in acquiring patents from IPR-GoI
