India will be functioning as an International Searching Authority (ISA) by June 2010, according to the Intellectual Property Office (IPO). Several may heave a sigh of relief, but it may also be time for the IPO to do some basic operations research and analysis to see if things are going as planned.The news, reported by the IPO in a post on the recent visit of Dr Francis Gurry, the Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) to the New Delhi branch of the IPO, may come as manna to patent practitioners. Readers who have been tracking IPO developments will know that India has been sitting on the ISA status for nearly two years now (see this Jan 08 post), and practitioners are getting increasingly restless at the delay in executing this plan.
However, and without attempting a full-blown analysis of the ground-situation at the IPO, I throw open some basic questions surrounding the “operationalising” of India’s ISA status:
1. Fundamentally,
are there enough officials to keep the ISA functioning, in addition to tackling the normal administrative duties of the IPO? I strongly suspect this may not be the case — and if the self-imposed deadline of June 2010 is to be met, this may mean a mass recruitment of officials in the months to come. At present, the vacancy announcements section lists only posts in the Trademarks Registry.2. Next, but less importantly,
does the IPO have the physical and electronic infrastructure in place to tackle the demands of an ISA? I recall news of damage to files and records of the Mumbai IPO due to fire — a repeat of an incident like this at any of the offices would be unpardonable, particularly if there is no digitised backup available. From what I understand, this project is still incomplete.3. Similarly,
are the online services, as they stand today, sufficient to pull this ISA project through? If any quality work is to be done in its capacity as an ISA, the IPO absolutely needs to beef up its online services, instead of allowing a generation of technology to come and go before it wakes up to the possibilities of the internet.
I may sound harsh in commenting thus, but as one uses and works with Indian and international governmental-end IP service delivery systems, the qualitative differences are stark. This is regardless of the service offered – eFiling, Application Status, Public Search, or Interactive Guidance. I am quite sure that the IPO is aware of the problems with all of these systems (e.g., jurisdictional limitations in eFiling patent applications; discordant data in application status; temperamental interactive guidance; and so on). It is perhaps even attempting to address these issues. Nevertheless, a quick Quality of Service and Quality of Experience would be incredibly enlightening to give the IPO some pointers in how things may potentially improve.
If India wants to be a competitive, and competent ISA, it will need to introspect and carefully examine these issues before taking the plunge.
Notwithstanding this, it would ‘feel good’ to see India’s ISA project take off by June 2010. There is no ISA Commonwealth Games to look out for, but the IPO will have beaten the Delhi Government in its race against time.
It has been going on for the last three years on increasing the quantum of human resources, particularly the appointment of Examiners of both Trade Mark and Patent. Especially on I.P. days, at any conferences held at CII or FICCI, it has become a custom for officials concerned to announce on recruitments. But now everybody knows it is a ‘mere rhetoric’.
As there was no good response to the recruitment of Examiners, Senior Examiners and Assistant Registrars on Deputation Basis (what you had mentioned in the post) it has been now cancelled.
Unless the department starts recruitment of officials at once and provide training before June 2010, it would be tough task not only to act as ISA but also to cope with the requirements under Madrid Protocol to maintain an International Register.
As per the data, which was made available on 01.10.2009, on DIPP website Government of India has sanctioned a budget of Rs.320 crores in the 11th Five Year Plan for modernization and re-structuring of Intellectual Property offices. The project also aims at developing infrastructure to facilitate functioning as an ISA and IPEA by the Patent Office and also for the Trade Marks Registry.
Other Major Activities are as follows:-
=Acquisition of database covering patent and non-patent literature for enhancing search capabilities of IPO to function as ISA and IPEA.
= The data bases procured include, QPAT & QWEB and Merged Markush Structure (MMS) and Non Patent literature Files of Questel – Orbit, Delphion / DWPI of Thomson Scientific & STN of CAS.
=137 journals of International repute have also been subscribed to fulfill the minimum documentation under PCT.
=In addition to above, IPO has acquired European Patent Database namely Epoque.net with 5 clients access at IPO Delhi
=Further augmentation of Human Resources to achieve the enhanced target by creating 414 additional posts including 200 posts of Examiner of Patents and 37 posts of Trade Marks Examiners.
And it further says that “The recruitment of Patent and Trade Mark Examiners is under process.” I don’t know what does the ‘process’ mean where there was no call for.
This following can be called JOKE of the YEAR 2009. The data further says that,
“The backlog of unexamined Trade Mark applications of approximately 5 lakh cases have been brought down to zero!”
India-IPO can be ISA by June 2010. But the question is, will it be a working ISA?
Examiner of Trade Marks
India IPO
Any idea about the costs and countries for which it will be acting as ISA.