The TM Office by way of a Circular dated July 18, 2018 has invited applications for an IPR training program for IP Protection Lawyers which is to be organized by Japan Patent Office from November 26, 2018 to December 12, 2018 in Tokyo, Japan. The candidates satisfying the eligibility criteria (as specified in the Circular) are required to send their applications on or before August 3, 2018.

The Japan Patent Office, since 1996, has been organizing such training programs in order to provide support to the human resource development in developing countries to reinforce the protection of IP. The training program is funded by the Japan Patent Office and its operation is taken car of by Japan Institute for Promoting Invention and Innovation (JIPII) and the Association for Overseas Technical Cooperation and Sustainable Partnerships (AOTS).

As per the Intellectual Property Rights (Imported Goods) Enforcement Rules, 2007 (“IPR (Imported Goods) Enforcement Rules, 2007) in conjunction with the Customs Act, 1962 trademark rights holders can register their trademark with customs houses to stop the import of infringing and counterfeit products. However, as per the amendment vide the Intellectual Property Rights (Imported Goods) Enforcement Amendment Rules, 2018 notified [REGD. NO. D. L.-33004/99 G.S.R. 581 (E)], Indian custom authorities are no longer tasked with examining patent infringement claims, i.e. patents have been excluded from the ambit of the IPR (Imported Goods) Enforcement Rules 2007 and right-holders thereof will no longer be able to protect their patents from being infringed through importation of counterfeited products. Further, the amendment will oblige non-patent right-holder to notify the Commissioner of Customs of any amendment, cancellation, suspension or reaction that concern Intellectual Property rights. Customs authorities have also been vested with powers to cancel patent registrations from its records based on the order passed by the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB), as per the new amendment to the IPR (Imported Goods) Enforcement Rules, 2007.

The Republic of Korea is the first country to adopt WIPO’s artificial intelligence (AI) based translation tool for patent documents. Through the WIPO Translate highly technical patent documents can be translated into a second language wherein the translated document would mirror the style and syntax of that language in common usage. It is done through uses cutting-edge neural machine translation technology and this AI based tool has gained praise for producing more accurate translation, far better than what its predecessor patent-translation tools could output.

Neural machine translation works on massive neural network models which machine-learn from previously translated sentences. The result of this process is a translation which has a more natural word sequence (higher quality translation) which is hard to achieve in languages which are rooted distantly from one another, such as Korean, Chinese and Japanese in comparison with English.

WIPO has made its Translate technology available to several international organizations, viz. United Nations Secretariat, several specialized agencies of the UN and the World Trade Organization. Currently, the AI based translation tool can translate all patent documents in one of the official languages of the Patent Cooperation Treaty, viz. Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish into English and vice-versa. WIPO aims to expand the language base of its new patent translation tool to include other unofficial and unlisted UN languages.

The Office of the Controller General Patents, Designs and Trademarks (CGPDTM) has decided to modify the basis of scheduling of the show-cause hearings. The present system is creating inconvenience to the attorneys at large as they are required to attend hearings at appropriate office on frequent basis. Taking note of the same, the CGPDTM has issued a public notice dated April 24, 2018 to change the present scenario.

With effect from June 2018, if more than one application is listed for hearing related to a particular attorney/applicant during the month, they will be clubbed and be fixed on the same date. If matters related to a particular attorney/applicant are found to be more than the daily limit, remaining matters will be fixed for hearing on the very next working day.

In a public circular dated March 12, 2018, the Office of The Controller General Patents, Designs & Trade Marks has informed that the Indian Patent Office (IPO) has started the WIPO Digital Access Service (DAS) with effect from January 31, 2018.

The WIPO Digital Access Service (DAS) is an electronic system allowing priority documents and similar documents to be securely exchanged between participating intellectual property (IP) offices under the WIPO-India Cooperation Agreement. The system enables applicants and offices to meet the requirements of the Paris Convention for certification in an electronic environment.

Administered by WIPO, the Service is intended for use with documents related to patents, utility models, industrial designs and trademarks. Using a secure access code provided by WIPO DAS, applicants can simply request the Office of first filing to add/deposit the priority document into the WIPO DAS system and request the Office of second filing to obtain access of the document. Thus, while reducing costs to pay for multiple copies of priority documents, the WIPO DAS also ensures secure exchange of documents.