40 Examiners – 15 Registrars – 400,000 pending TM applications – The crippling truth about the Trademark Registry

Over the last few years, the Trademark Registry has come under fire from several quarters for rampant corruption, as witnessed in the arrest of Ms. Kasturi; startling inefficiency, as witnessed by the thousands of missing files and the poor quality of trademark examinations. While of course, some of these problems can be blamed on the poor moral fibre of some, not all, of the staff at the TM Registry, the larger problem appears to be an absolutely appalling lack of staff at the TM Registry. (Image from here)

Recently, on the 31^st of October, I filed a couple of RTI Applications with the DIPP on the vacancies at the Trademark Registry and I’m glad to report that Ms. Chandni Raina, Director & CPIO, at the DIPP has responded with the required information within the 30 day time limit. My RTI application had requested for information on the sanctioned strength of the TM Registry and the number of vacant posts. Normally this information could have been got from the Annual Reports of the IPO but for some reason these reports are released only after a time lag of a year thereby creating more work for the CPIOs. The DIPP’s reply to the RTI Application can be accessed over here and the same information has been compiled into the table below:

This would mean that out of the sanctioned strength of 122 posts, only 55 posts have been filled up by the DIPP. This means that only 45% of all posts are occupied while a whopping 55% lie vacant. Even amongst these 55 posts, please note that only Registrar rank officers are allowed to grant trademark registrations under the Act. Currently there are only 15 Registrars. The examiners of which there are only 40, may only examine trademark applications and transmit the examination reports to the Registrar.

I’ve interviewed some ex-TM officials and they have informed me that even amongst the examiners only Senior Examiners may examine trademark applications. Mere ‘Examiners’ are Group B officers without a degree in law and are hence not allowed to examine trademark applications. The above statistics may appear bone-chilling but it is still an improvement over the previous year of 2009-10, which has been discussed below:

The working strength of the TM Office for the year 2009-2010 has been compiled into the table below, on the basis of the Annual Report for that year:

This would mean that the TM Registry was working at 17% strength. This was the year that TM registrations fell by half to only 67,490 applications.

Let’s also examine the working strength of the TM Office for the year 2004-05, which has been compiled into the table below, on the basis of the Annual Report for that year:

So let’s just compare the working strength of the TM Registry for the three financial years explained above:

Therefore although the DIPP has made an effort to fill up the vacancies more than 50% of all posts remain vacant. It appears that 2009-10 was the crippling year which caused this crippling backlog. The only saving grace was that sometime in the last 5 years, the Trade Mark Registry was computerized to a certain extent thereby improving efficiency despite the shortage of staff.

Analysing the workload of the TM Registry:

In order to put the number of vacancies in perspective it is necessary to examine these vacancies in the context of the number of trademark applications filed, oppositions hearings and the Rs. 70 crores of surplus revenue generated by the TM Registry.

As already explained above in 2009-2010 there were just 13 Examiners and 3 Registrars at the Trademark Office. (Please note that only Registrars can conduct hearings for oppositions and also grant trademark registrations.) So between these 13 Examiners and 3 Registrars a total of 25,875 applications were examined and 67,490 applications were registered. This would mean that, on an average, each Registrar granted around 22,496 registrations. Further, these 3 Registrars conducted a total of 8,251 hearings with regard to trademark oppositions, trademark rectifications i.e. an average of 2,750 hearings per Registrar!

As you are all aware, there are 365 days in a year, of which 52 are Sundays and let’s presume that other holidays and official leave amount to around 20 days; which would mean that these 3 Registrars functioned for only about 293 days a year. Thus each Registrar conducted around 9 hearings in a seven hour workday apart from granting 76 trademark registrations in one day. What do you think is the quality of trademark registrations during this period? I’m thinking, not too good.

The above was the past let’s have a look at the future. According to the Discussion Paper released by the DIPP, there are over 400,000 trademark applications pending at various stages before the TM Registry. The TM Registry has to dispose this workload with a staff of just 15 Registrars, 3 Senior Examiners and 37 Examiners. This would mean that each Registrar has to deal with 26,666 applications to clear this backlog. Also since only Senior Examiners can conduct examinations, it would mean that each Senior Examiner has to examine around 133,333 applications each, with the assistance of around 40 Examiners.

Concluding thoughts: The need of the hour

I think the problem behind the corruption and inefficiency ay the TM Registry is quite simply a lack of personnel to conduct hearings. The DIPP needs to conduct a scientific study on the number of hours that are required to be spent by each Examiner/Registrar on examining a trademark application and then appoint Examiners/Registrars according to the expected number of trademark filings every year. Even presuming that the DIPP does fill up the sanctioned strength of 122 officials, I still don’t think the numbers will suffice. 400,000 is a huge backload. I’m guessing that at the very least the Trade Mark office will have to quadruple its staff to meet the increasing needs of the Indian economy. More on this later.