Patent office Records at a glance

Work Flow balance is still a (?) for IPO because amended policies and rules give a magnetic attraction to start-ups and beneficiaries for better participate in the flow of IPO but this may be a hurdle also when the path has reduced to 60% in ratio with coming flow and ongoing and delivered flow. First, let us give credit where it is due. The DIPP and IPO finally managed to conduct large-scale recruitment process of patent office examiners without any major scandal that in itself is an achievement. The increased recruitment has no doubt helped clear some of the backlogs and speed up the examination process of application. Although from what appears, the quality of the examinations remains a concern.

CASE 1: A procured information (Refer RTI IPO 2012) application filed in 2012 reveals that:

1.    there were a total of 835 pending pre-grant patent oppositions

2.    along with 135,874 pending trademark oppositions

3.    878 pending trademark rectification proceedings

Pls note: Data was only received as a joint answer by all IPO offices.

CASE 2: A procured information (Refer RTI IPO 2017) application filed in 2017 regarding an annual break up of oppositions filed and disposed and cumulative figures regarding pendency between 2007 and 2017 entertained as:

1.    Controller-General’s Office transferred RTI application to all branch offices. (Seems Controller General of Patents, Designs & Trade Marks office does not have record to give a joint answer)

2.    Received individual replies from different patent offices and trademark registries.

3.    The Patent Offices at Bombay, Chennai and Delhi basically gave a list of all the pre-grant patent oppositions ever filed before their Patent Office and asked to manually check the status of each patent opposition on their website.

4.    The Kolkata Patent Office tried to fob off to their annual reports and also asked to do a manual search of the decisions of the Patent Office.

5.    There is also no information on pre-grant oppositions that may have been withdrawn (which does happen sometimes).

Questions:
x

1.    Controller General of Patents, Designs & Trade Marks office claiming pendency is down when their underlings at the branch offices do not even have data on the pendency of oppositions and rectifications?

2.    Moreover, why is this data not being maintained with Controller General of Patents, Designs & Trade Marks office (as evidenced by the transfer of RTI application) when his predecessors maintained such records in 2012 …?

3.    If Controller office isn’t keeping track of this data, how exactly does he plan to tackle 135,874 oppositions+ 5,533 rectifications under the Trade Marks Act and a yet to be revealed number of oppositions under the Patents Act?

Lighter note: Keeping oppositions pending for so long does not make an economic sense because it is these very IP applications that are of value to the Indian economy.