Cabinet approves the Patent Prosecution Highway programme

News: The Union Cabinet has approved the proposal for adoption of Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) programme by the Indian Patent Office (IPO) with patent offices of various other countries or regions.

Facts:

About Patent Prosecution Highway Programme:

• The said programme will initially commence between the Japan Patent Office (JPO) and the Indian Patent Office on a pilot basis for a period of three years. It is aimed at streamlining patent applications at IPO.
• Under this pilot programme, IPO may receive patent applications in certain specified technical fields such as electrical, electronics, computer science, information technology, automobiles and metallurgy. On the other hand, the JPO may receive patent applications in all fields of technology.
• JPO and IPO will frame their own guidelines for the implementation of the programme.

Benefits of PPH Programme:

• Reduction in time to dispose of patent applications.
• Reduction in pendency of patent applications.
• Improvement in quality of search and examination of patent applications.
• An opportunity for Indian inventors including MSMEs and Start-ups of India to get an accelerated examination of their patent applications in Japan.

Additional Information:

Patent:

• A patent is a form of intellectual property right. A patent gives its owner the right to exclude others from making, selling and importing an invention for a limited period of time. The patent rights are granted in exchange for an enabling public disclosure of the invention.
• The patent system ensures that information on new inventions is made available for eventual public use so as to encourage technical and economic development.
• The term of every patent in India is twenty years.

Indian Patent System:

• An invention relating to a product or a process that is new, involving an inventive step and capable of industrial application can be patented in India.
• The patents are governed by the Patents Act, 1970. The Act was amended in 2005 wherein product patent was extended to all fields of technology including food, drugs, chemicals and microorganisms.
• The Patents Act is implemented and administered by the Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs and TradeMarks (CGPDTM). The CGPDTM reports to the Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
• Patent applications are filed and processed at Indian Patent Office, an office under CGPDTM. The Indian patent office is headquartered at Kolkata with branches in Chennai, New Delhi and Mumbai.

National Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Policy 2016

It is a vision document that aims to create and exploit synergies between all forms of intellectual property, concerned legislations and agencies. The objectives of IPR policy are:

• To create public awareness about the economic, social and cultural benefits of IPRs among all sections of society
• To stimulate the generation of IPRs
• To have robust IPR laws
• To modernize and strengthen service-oriented IPR administration.
• Get value for IPRs through commercialization.
• To strengthen the enforcement and adjudicatory mechanisms for combating IPR infringements.
• To strengthen and expand human resources, institutions and capacites for teaching, training, research and skill building in IPRs