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PATENT DATA


Trends in patent protection


A number of trends in relation to patent protection in India,  are becoming clear. Jayanta Pal and Nitin Kalra of Remfry & Sagar explain more.


in India annually—patent law and practice are nevertheless maturing and primed for expansion and growth at


A the right time to


coincide with the government’s Make in India initiative (designed, among other things, to foster innovation). An analysis of fi ling statistics and judicial decisions brings up some interesting trends.


Filing trends Aſt er signing the TRIPS Agreement in 1995, India introduced a full product patent regime ten years later, in 2005. Despite certain questions being raised about India’s compliance with international benchmarks, the patent sector has grown rapidly and fi ling statistics (see Table 1) clearly show the expansion of patent protection. In absolute terms, 12,613 patent applications


were fi led in India between April 2003 and March 2004. T is fi gure has risen nearly 250% to 43,674 in the corresponding period between 2012 and 2013. With the digitisation of patent offi ce records, new search interface and e-fi ling options being available,


coupled with the setting-up of the Indian Patent Offi ce (IPO) as


lthough India is a small player in the global patent


market—only around 40,000 applications are fi led


a search and examining authority, we are fi t for further growth beyond that seen over the last decade.


Prosecution statistics While fi lings have increased year on year, staff inadequacies at


the IPO have led to delays


in grants and subsequent enforceability of patents in India. For instance, although data for the year 2012 reveals a 25% increase from 2011 in the number of applications published, examination and disposal numbers remain relatively unchanged (see Table 2). Also, while numbers of


applications


examined and disposed by the IPO have shown an overall increase in recent years, the numbers dipped from 2011 to 2012 (examined) and 2012 to 2013 (disposed). Nevertheless, overall prosecution trends


indicate that from 2013 to 2014 there was a substantial increase in all three categories compared to previous years, which is refl ective of the IPO’s eff orts towards reducing backlogs. T is has been driven by the approximately 150% increase in the number of patent examiners— from 80 to more than 200.


Recent trends in examinations Patent prosecution in India has undergone


74 World Intellectual Property Review Annual 2015 World Intellectual Property Review November/December 2014


recent changes in the areas of fi ling requirements when entering the national phase in India, divisional applications, proof-of-right requirements and disclosure requirements under section 8 of the Indian Patents Act. With respect to fi ling an


international


application under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) designating India, over the last year or so there have been numerous instances where the IPO has interpreted section 138(4) of the Patents Act narrowly. Until the recent interpretation, PCT applications fi led in India were considered correctly fi led even with a set of claims diff erent from those in the international PCT application. However, in a change of stance, the IPO now


requires that claims of the Indian application correspond exactly with PCT claims, including the number of claims. Signifi cantly, the IPO has even refused to accept applications that were fi led with fewer claims than those fi led under the PCT. T erefore, any amendments to claims in India must be made separately aſt er the application is fi led in India. With respect to divisional applications, when


a claim relates to more than one invention, section 16 of the Patents Act allows division of the pending application, either at the request of the applicant or in response to the controller’s objection.


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