Patents offices need to gear up

Quality of examiners in India may turn out be the main issue

The Ordinance introducing the product patents regime in pharmaceuticals, agro-chemicals and food is in place, but India needs to do much more to equip its patents offices to handle the rush of applications.

The main issue could turn out to be the quality of examiners the country has.

"We already have product patents in every field. The Ordinance only introduces three new areas where they are allowed," says an official in the commerce and industry ministry, adding that a net additional load of more than 500 applications is not likely over the next two years.

The point is that not all people who file patents applications want them examined. Patents are often filed for priority. Examination fees are fairly high and world over, not more than 10 per cent of the applications go in for examination.

In 2003-04, a total of 12,574 applications for patents were filed and 11,080 applications were examined in the four patents and design offices in India, which employ a total of about 600 people.

Under the Indian laws, an applicant has 36 months to file an application for examination, so, the patents office expects that the 12,000 pending applications in the mail box will be phased out over a certain period of time. The workload will increase by about 30 per cent for say, two years, the official says.

However, in addition to the 12,000 pending applications, at least another 15,000 expected to come in under the national phase of the Patent Cooperation Treaty to which India is a signatory. Also, new applications will be filed in the next few years.

"The net effect will be to double the number of applications in the next 1- 2 years, says Aditya Trivedi, director, Institute of Intellectual Property Development at the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industries. Even 10 per cent of that will mean a huge number of applications to be examined

To increase the speed with which cases are disposed of, the government has gone in for computerisation of patents offices and created new posts for patents examiners.

In the current fiscal, the government provided almost Rs 12 crore for the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks and Rs 19 crore for modernisation and strengthening of the patent office and Rs 1.2 crore for the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB).

The Rs 44-crore computerisation programme to upgrade four patents offices is expected to be completed in the next fiscal. The new offices in Delhi and Kolkata are expected to be ready in the next 4-5 months and in Chennai and Mumbai by July next year.

Computerisation will make a significant difference to the time required in processing application and conducting prior art searches, says the official.

The government has also created new posts, taking the number of sanctioned posts for patents examiners to 271. Of these, 190 are in place, say officials. The rate of disposal, which is currently more than 1000 applications a month on an average, is expected to go up to around 2000 a month.

Here the quality of examiners is an issue. "Examiners abroad are PhDs. In India, most are MScs from relatively obscure universities," says Trivedi, who is also involved in training the examiners.

Though the government does not expect that cases will reach the board in the next one or two years, other estimates say that there will be a rush.

With estimates varying from 700 to 2,000 for the next two years, the issue of how many cases the Intellectual Propety Appellate Board, located at Chennai can handle is important.

Patents pointers

Under the Indian laws, an applicant has 36 months to file an application for examination

In 2003-04, a total of 12,574 applications for patents were filed and 11,080 applications were examined in the four patents and design offices in India