The 2020 Budget presentation includes measures towards creation and protection of intellectual property as key elements in realizing the Government’s vision of an extended base for knowledge-driven enterprises and start-ups.

Proposed measures include digital platforms aimed at facilitating seamless application and capture of IP, setting up knowledge translation clusters, mapping of India’s genetic landscape for next-generation medicine and biodiversity management, and creation of a national level database for the same.  

The Trade Marks Registry has, vide Public Notice dated January 21, 2020, notified a list of Grievance Redressal Officers nominated for each of its branches. The role of the Grievance Redressal Officers is to attend to issues pertaining to procedural difficulties at the Trade Marks Registry, and to resolve them within two weeks’ time.

As part of the Trade Marks Registry’s ongoing digitization process, it has issued a further Public Notice dated January 3, 2020, calling upon Trademark Proprietors and Counsels to ensure that their email addresses are updated in the Registry’s records. While a similar notice was issued earlier on May 9, 2019 in the new Notice the Controller General observes that “…e-Register is still not having e-mail id details for many applications which is creating hurdles in timely communication from the registry to the stakeholders.”

The deadline to provide email addresses for service is January 31, 2020.

The Trade Marks Registry has, vide its Public Notice dated December 12, 2019, invited inputs on overcoming technical and procedural issues in the processing of trade mark applications from stake-holders.

This move was notified by the Trade Marks Registry pursuant to a directive by the High Court of Delhi. The directive was based on the Court’s observations on the increasing issues faced in the processing of Trade Mark applications.

The office of Controller General Patents, Designs & Trademarks recently announced the publication of a new “Manual of Patent Office (Practice and Procedure)”. The new manual has been designed to incorporate changes relating to the recent amendments, reengineering of patent procedures and automation in the operational practices and procedures of the Patent Office. The new manual can be accessed at: http://www.ipindia.nic.in/writereaddata/Portal/Images/pdf/Manual_for_Patent_Office_Practice_and_Procedure_.pdf