Government soon to bring national policy on intellectual property rights
To encourage innovation and entrepreneurship in the country, the government is in the process to bring in a national policy on intellectual property rights competent with the international trade norms. Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday said that a government-appointed think tank has already prepared the draft of the policy which has been sent to various ministries for consultation. After collecting feedback from all departments, the proposed policy will be sent to the cabinet. “After adopting a transparent process of drafting this policy, it is now being with the government for a month or two. It has gone to all the ministries, which is a necessary process, for inter-ministerial consultation. We shall take inputs from various ministries and post that, we’ll give the final version to the Cabinet,” she said addressing a seminar on 'Protecting Brands Abroad with the Madrid System’ organised by FICCI (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry). She said that the government is “keen to make sure that the Indian patent rights, Indian GIs ((geographical indicators), Indian copy rights are all protected” all over the world. In the recent past, the US and other developed countries have expressed concern over Indian IPR laws vis-a-vis the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), an international trade regulation adopted by all members of the WTO (World Trade Organisation). “Everything that we are doing— the legal framework and the act that we have in front of us— are, and I assert you, TRIPS compliant. So there is no need for apprehension in any corner of the world as to what is India’s patent regime is like. Let’s be sure, we are TRIPS compliant, we are confident and we are sure that we shall protect the Indian in TRIPS in the matter of intellectual property,” she added. The minister said that the government is also making efforts to expedite the patent clearing process in the country and roped in more than 450 patent examiners to clear all pending applications. “We are trying to get enough qualified people. We will train them so that applications do not have to wait for years to get cleared. Government is working on that. We are ensuring that patent officers are also updated. The technology that they use, the office with which they run there are all up to date so that they are not going to be sitting on tonnes of paper and making the process so very manual. Most of the patent officers today are very non-manual in nature of their functioning. Everything happens online,” she said.
July 20, 2015 | 6:35 pm IST.
to success.