Consultative Working Group Milestone - Roundup

As a result of Consultative Working Group Deliberations on patents, designs and Trade Marks System in India, we have been able to bring greater transparency in the working of Patent Office. Working Group Deliberations have also led to streamlining of procedures related to prosecution of Patents in India. Here is the list of Milestones achieved and the press release made:

1. Data Analysis wing established at the Patent Office

The Mumbai Patent Office has established a separate wing which is solely responsible for data analysis. The Wing will be responsible for creating statistical data on "records on technical fields by year of filings, maximum no. of patents granted to a company in each sector, top 20 companies filing patents, total no. of patents granted in each year, resident filings, non-resident filings, pending applications by office, patents in force by country etc. For details, please refer "PBD Business; Saturday; May 24, 2008" and "Business Standard, Kolkata, 24 May 2008".

2. Abstracts of Patent Applications are now available online

Patent Office has made the abstracts of patent applications, published after 18 months, online. This could eliminate the Herculean and time consuming task of searching the desired information through Patent Office Journals which are published in PDF format. For details, please refer "PBD Business; Saturday; May 24, 2008" and "Business Standard, Kolkata, 24 May 2008"."Business Standard, Kolkata, 24 May 2008".

3. Enhanced Transparency in the working of Patent Office

Patent Office has also made available the decisions of Controller's online enabling third party to check legal status of the patent application. For details, please refer "PBD Business; Saturday; May 24, 2008" and "Business Standard, Kolkata, 24 May 200".

4. Full text of Patents made available online

The records of granted patents have been made available online. The work of digitizing entire patent records is also in process. The online access of digitized records will be made available by January 2009. DIPP has informed that the entire records including patents/patent applications/response filed by the applicants etc. is expected to be made available by January 2009. For details please check Mint; Friday; March 7, 2008.

5. Proposal to incentivize E-Filling submitted

FICCI has submitted a proposal to DIPP to incentivize users for E-filing of patent applications. This proposal will be soon implemented. For details please check "Business Line; Saturday, 24 May 2008, Page 10"; "PBD Business; Saturday; May 24, 2008" and "Business Standard; Kolkata, 24 May 2008".

6. Direct consultation with the officials of the Patent Office

The working group recommended for the creation of a mechanism which could provide assistance to the users who wish to learn about the working of patent office and the procedural issues. You would be happy to note that Patent Office has, as a result, recently launched an interactive web based service under which any person who has query related to patent and Trade marks can chat with patent office.

7. E-Filing of Patent & Trademarks made use friendly

E-filing of patent and trade Mark applications made more user friendly by increasing number of payment gateways and certifying authorities for digital signatures. This has led to substantial increase in number of E-filings. For details please click: http://www.ipindia.nic.in/

• For details please check "Business Standard; 24 May 2008"; "The Economic Times, Saturday, 24 May 2008, Page 10"; "Hindu; Saturday, 24 May 2008" and "PBD Business, Saturday, May 24, 2008".