Relevance
- GS 3: Issues relating to intellectual property rights.
Context
- Recently, Ministry of Commerce & Industry has notified the Patents (Amendment) Rules, 2021 whereby it has reduced the patent fees for educational institutions.
Key points
- Government has reduced patent filing and processing fees charged on educational institutions by 80%, which is at par with similar concession provided to start-ups under the Start-up India initiative.
- The step will nurture innovation and creativity in a knowledge economy.
- It will help in promoting greater collaboration between industry and academia.
- By amending the Rules, the procedures are made more compact, time-bound, user- friendly and compatible for e-transactions.
Steps taken by the Government to facilitate patent filing
- Augmentation of manpower by recruiting new examiners.
- Making process of applying and granting patents completely online.
- Hearing of cases in Patents through Video-Conferencing for speedy and contact-less proceedings.
- Dynamic redesigning of website and real-time based hassle-free dissemination of IP information to stakeholders.
- Encouraging the digital process for applying & granting Patents.
- Scheme for Facilitating Start-ups Intellectual Property Protection (SIPP) has been launched to provide facilitators to Start-ups for filing and processing of their applications. Professional charges of such facilitators are reimbursed as per provisions under the SIPP scheme.
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Benefits of such steps
- The time taken for examination of patents have come down from average 72 months in 2015 to 12-30 months at present.
- Further, it is expected that the time for final disposal of patent applications, which has reduced to average 48 months at present from few years earlier, will be reduced to average 24-30 months from filing by end of 2021.
- Further, an Expedited Examination System has been introduced wherein an application for grant of patent is being decided within one year of filing such request under Expedited Examination as compared to the period of few years required in case of normal examination route.
- The fastest granted patent is the one which was granted in 41 days after filing of such request. This facility of Expedited Examination system was initially provided for patent applications filed by Start-ups.