The revamping of the IP administration in the country, which was set in motion with the advent of the National IPR policy in 2016, has effectively used the stepping stones of procedural and administrative reforms to bring the much awaited results for the stakeholders. When it comes to IP creation, India has jumped five places to rank 52 in the Global Innovation Index 2019, up from the 57 it had in last year’s rankings.
The Annual Report issued by the Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trademarks (CGPDTM) for the financial year 2017-18 illustrates the achievements garnered by the Indian Trademark Office (TMO) in the past year. The improvements introduced during the last two years such as amendments of Patents and Trademarks Rules, digital reforms and reengineering of IP procedures have resulted in an upswing performance, dwindled pendency and elevated rates of disposal of IP applications. This year has witnessed incredible achievements in terms of efficient performance and delivery of IP services as well as IT -enabled functioning on the part of the IP office.
Strengthening of institutional mechanism, digitization of records, business process re-engineering and augmentation of human resources were all aimed to match and rather ambitiously surpass the standards set by many IP Offices across the world. This process is on-going and soon we will witness more advanced IP office functioning in India. Some significant highlights of the annual report are as under:
A. TRADEMARKS
- Filing
• Online filing increased to 86%.
• Class 5 (pharmaceuticals, veterinary and sanitary substances etc.) applications once again topped the rank with 13.93% share in overall filing, followed by Class 35 (Advertising, business management and related services) applications with 9.73% share in overall filing.
• The filing trend, however, dipped marginally with 2, 72,974 applications filed as compared to 2, 78,170 applications last year.
• Out of 2, 72,974 applications filed this year, 25,307 were filed by foreign applicants. United States topped the list of foreign applicants followed by China
Ø Examination and Publication
• The pendency of examination of trademark applications has continued to be less than 1 month.
• Procedural reforms in examination have resulted in increased acceptance of trademark applications from less than 10% to about 46% at the initial stage.
• 4, 23,030 applications published as compared to 333,673 publications last year.
Ø Registration and Disposal
• 20.3% increase in issuance of trademark registrations. Over 3, 00,000 trademarks have been registered as compared to 2, 50,070 registrations last year.
• 5, 55,777 applications disposed of as compared to 2, 90,444 applications last year, augmenting the overall percentage by 91.4%.
