NEW DELHI: In a major fillip to the intellectual property regime in India, the Department of Industrial Policy has come up with a multi-pronged strategy to develop innovation and creativity. The Modi government, in its push for a more refined and developed intellectual property regime to boost its Make in India campaign, has announced a slew of measures to promote homegrown talent. Here’s what’s on cards:
1) More posts: An additional 1033 plan posts have been created, including 666 posts for Patents & Designs and 367 posts for Trademarks and GI at various levels. Already, recruitment is underway. Patent and Trademarks examiners are also being taken on contract to deal with the backlog.
2) Ease of access: To cater to the immense flow of the papers filed, a single central server at IPO Delhi is in place. The system is unique in itself since there is automatic generation of application numbers as also automatic allotment of the request for examination which is sequential and thus transparent and user-friendly.
3) Online e-filing facilities: Comprehensive online e-filing facilities for patent and trademark application. This will give applicants two advantages. First, an applicant can file an application virtually 24×7 and secondly, applications can be filed from the comfort of their workplace/ homes.
4) Comprehensive payment gateway: E-filers given facility of using debit cards, credit cards and internet banking of over 70 banks for making payment of fees for all forms.
5) 10% rebate on online filing.
6) Fee Concession for MSME: To encourage inventors to innovate and seek protection for their inventions, a 50 % fee reduction has been provided for MSMEs.
7) Madrid Protocol: The operationalization of the Madrid protocol for international protection of trademarks provides the user the facility of protecting an inventor’s trademark in 90 countries by filing a single application in one language with one set of fees filed at the Trademarks Registry.
8) International Search Authority and International Preliminary Examining Authority: This will help come up with quality reports at the lowest cost among the international players like USPTO, EPO, JPO.
9) IPR awareness programmes: To educate stakeholders about the benefits of registration of their rights as also educate the general public, particularly the business community, on perils of infringement of IPRs held by others/ dealing in pirated and counterfeit products. This also includes educating public via the internet media, a portal on the website of office of the CGPDTM has presentations uploaded on various aspects of IPR.
10) Catching them young: A corner to educate and inculcate the culture of respecting and protecting IPR’s among the next generation has been undertaken via uploaded comics which are based on basics of IPRs.
