The Minister for Commerce and Industry, Suresh Prabhu took a review of the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) related initiatives taken by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), Ministry of Commerce and Industry, for strengthening the IPR regime in the country.

The Government of India has been working to streamline IP processes and modernisation of IP offices through steps such as comprehensive e-filing facilities made available for patents and trademarks, auto-allotment of patent applications to ensure uniformity and utilization of the specialized expertise of all examiners and controllers and by auto generation of trademark certificates. Examination of Patent applications has increased over three times in the last six months compared to the same period last year.

To reduce the pendency, 458 Patent and 59 Trademark examiners have been appointed in addition to the existing manpower. Pendency in Patent examination is targeted to be brought down from the present 7 years to 18 months by 2019. The pendency of Trademark applications at the examination stage has been reduced drastically - the time taken for examination has been brought down from 13 months to less than one month.

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