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This was followed by Rajiv reporting on a notification issued by the DIPP on September 25, 2012 prescribing the rules for becoming a patent agent. The impact of the rule change would be that a candidate now requires a total of 150 [(100+100+50)*60%] in aggregate to pass with a minimum of 50 in the written papers in the patent agent examination.
The results of an RTI application filed by Spicy IP were then put forward by Sai Vinod. The RTI had sought information on the number of Original Rectification Applications (ORA), Transferred Rectification Applications (TRA), Original Appeals (OA) and Transferred Appeals (TA) filed and disposed by the IPAB from 2007 till August, 2012. After analyzing the raw data, Sai was of the opinion that despite the heavy backlog of cases, the performance of IPAB in the past 20 months has significantly improved and this improvement owes to a considerable extent to Justice Prabha Sridevan’s appointment as the IPAB Chairperson in April, 2011.
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A guest post had also been put up by Amlan, written by Sooraj Abraham, on a recent decision of the Allahabad High Court on the appointment of a grievance officer under R.3(11) of the Intermediary Guidelines and the surrounding issues relating to the appointment of a ‘Grievance Officer’ under the Guidelines.
Prashant then carried out 3 separate posts, delving deeper into the controversy surrounding the Sunitinib Patent that Sugen as applied for. The first post raised the question whether Sugen had established a clear title to the invention in the first place. The second post further probed into possible lapses by Sugen in having neglected to file the requisite documentation in the first place and whether the Patent Office had been negligent in not having caught on to the same. The third post laid down the details of a few more irregularities as evident from Sugen’s application.
Meanwhile, Swaraj had also carried out an extensive post, divided into two parts (here and here), introducing the US giant patent-owning company Intellectual Ventures and the attempts of a patent analytics firm IP Checkups to unearth and make public the details of the former’s secretive patent portfolio. Swaraj’s interaction with Matthew Rappaport, founder of IPCheckups, was also described in details in the format of a Q&A session in the post.
International Developments
In the international front, HTC and Apple have reached a settlement involving dismissal of all ongoing lawsuits between them as well as signing a license agreement for the next decade regarding all present and future patents owned by both parties. However, in another turn of events, Apple is facing a settlement wherein it has to pay $21 million for settling an allegation of it having infringed the trademark by using the image of a railway Swiss railway clock.
The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UN-ESCWA) has launched the “Innovation and Commercialization for Economic Development” regional workshop at the Royal Scientific Society to support capacity building by the Member Countries in innovation management skills, shore up the intermediary organizations implementing support activities for SMEs and enhance collaboration, knowledge transfer and best practices among innovation stakeholders in those countries.
The UN-ESCWA Technology Center has also signed a MoU recently with the Licensing Executives Society – Arab Countries (LES-AC) to encourage innovation, cooperation for expanding opportunities to correspond between innovators and investors in the ESCWA countries, and to disseminate information and enhance procedures for technology transfer on a regional level.
UNCTAD has finally released the Technology and Innovation Report 20121 (Innovation, Technology and South–South Collaboration) that notes a promising collaboration among the developing nations in the matters of technology sharing and innovation. However, the benefit may not be reaching to the poorer countries. According to UNCTAD, the Report calls for developing countries to harness the potential of South–South collaboration in order to stimulate greater technological growth in the developing world by establishing an “international framework on South–South technology and innovation”.
The International Trademark Association has awarded its annual President’s and Volunteer Service Awards in 2012 to Louis T. Pirkey, of Pirkey Barber LLP and Peter Harvey, of Harvey Siskind LLP, recognizing leadership and innovation in trademark and IP related law. On another front, the WIPO Innovative Enterprise Award in 2012, a means for promoting public awareness of IP and its business advantages, has been won by the Swiss company TVP Solar for the solar air-cooling demo project installed at the Marrakesh testing platform of the Agence Nationale Pour le Développement des Energies Renouvelables (“ADEREE”)
Meanwhile, ICANN’s Nominating Committee has issued invitations from the Internet community for key leadership positions to fulfill ICANN’s technical and policy coordination role, such as Directors, ALAC Representatives, GNSO and ccNSO membership etc.
Silence Therapeutics plc has recently been granted two patents by the USPTO, relating to interfering RNA molecules and lipid complexes used in drug delivery.
Finally, UPOV and the civil society organization appear to be at loggerheads once again, with the former having emphasized on the benefits of plant variety protection as a way to help mitigate agricultural challenges and improve the livelihood of farmers in a recent symposium and the latter having denounced a push for a more stringent version of the UPOV Convention and condemning the new rules for observers on that ground.
That’s all for this week, readers. Enjoy the festival of lights and keep reading 🙂
