New IPR policy to go before Cabinet in a month: Kant

The draft of the new Intellectual Property Rights policy will go before Cabinet in a month's time for approval, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion Secretary Amitabh Kant said today.
"India is becoming the centre for research and development. In the last five years, over 1,500 companies, multinational corporations have relocated their R&D wing out of their head offices to Bengaluru and Hyderabad," Kant told reporters here.
He said: "They are employing close to 150,000 Indians for research and development, but we have to spread this movement for Indians to register their patents."
"At present Indians register only 22 per cent of patents in India, 78 per cent are registered by foreigners. So, India has to be made into a nation of innovation, into a nation of design and Bengaluru must take a lead in innovation and design," he added.

Speaking on the government's proposed Intellectual Property Rights policy, he said, "PM has asked us to draft out a new IPR policy, there was a task-force appointed and new Intellectual Property Rights policy for the first time will be announced in the country, it is going before the Cabinet for approval."
Responding to a question, he said, "... It will go to the Cabinet in another month."

Asked about the less number of patent agencies in the country, he said, "In the next eighteen months we will bring the pendency of patents to the international level. That is the pendency only with three months."

"We are recruiting about a thousand patent examiners and (also) outsourcing," he added.
Government is amending patent rules "so that Make in India and startup patents are put on fast-track," Kant said.