Over 83,000 patent applications are pending for examination due to shortage of manpower, Parliament was informed today.
"83,686 patent applications for examination are pending as on March 8, 2011. This pendency is due to substantial increase in filing requests for examination and shortage of examiners of patent and designs," Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Jyotiraditya Scindia said in a written reply to Lok Sabha.
Scindia said that as part of the recruitment process, examinations were held to recruit 257 patent examiners on January 2, 2011.
He also said that there was no proposal to establish more branches of patent offices.