Since April 2019, a total of 16 entries have been added to the list of registered GIs in India. Some of the latest additions include Irish Whiskey, a famous alcoholic beverage from Ireland, Palani Panchamirtham, an offering made to the presiding deity of Arulmigu Dhandayuthapani swamy Temple in Palani Town, Tamil Nadu; Tawlhlohpuan, a compactly woven fabric from Aizawl and Thenzawl towns, Mizoram; Mizo Puanchei, a colorful textile from Mizoram and Tirur betel vine, mainly cultivated in Malappuram district, Kerala and used for making pan masala.

India improved its raking in the GII by five places to 52^nd in 2019 from its last year’s 57^th position. India is one of the countries to consistently witness an improvement of its rankings over the last few years.

GI logo along with a tagline has been recently launched to serve as a certification mark of authenticity for the Indian origin products registered as Geographical Indications. To ensure appropriate use of this logo (with the tagline), draft Guidelines (providing terms, conditions, restrictions and procedure to obtain permission for such use), seeking comments from stakeholders (until July 24, 2019), have been published.

Draft Rules inviting objections from the public (until June 30, 2019) have been issued, intending to amend the Patent Rules, 2003. These amendments aim to bring out certain crucial changes in the information to be provided in a statement of working of the patent (under statutory Form-27); and further provide clarification to the prescribed timelines in filing an English translation of the priority document of a national phase application, and Form-27. They further clarify that Form-27 need not be furnished for the year in which the patent was granted in India.

Cell for IPR Promotion and Management (CIPAM) has published statistics for trends in IP filings in India for the fiscal year 2018-2019. The number of patent and trademark applications filed during the year saw an increase by 5.9% and 24% respectively as compared to the previous year.

While the number of design filings in the year also saw an increase by 6.3%, there was a dip of 22% in the copyright filings made during this period.

An increase of 8.6% in the number of patents granted during the year has also been reported – from 47,695 grants in 2017-18 to 51,781 grants in 2018-19.

Source: http://cipam.gov.in/iptrends/