Trademark registration time to be reduced: Arun Jaitley

The Dollar Business Bureau

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced that India is planning for a mechanism that can help in bringing down the time period of the registration of the trademark to one month by 2017.

He said that it takes a lot of time to get the registration done and the government’s plan to facilitate online application can help in bringing down the time period to one month by 2017.  

This move will help in cutting down the pending applications. The total trademark registration and the patent application pending as of first February 2016 are 5,44,171 and 2,37,029.

On the national IPR policy, Jaitley said that the capacity would be built to help achieve policy objectives.

He added that public health should also be taken into consideration so that medicine cost does not become prohibited which may result in patents creating a monopoly.

Talking about compulsory licensing(CL) he said that only cancer drugs have been issued CL so far.

According to the norms of WTO, CL can be invoked by the government on drugs without the permission of the patent owner considering public interest.

According to the Indian Patents Act, the CL can be invoked by the government when the drugs seem unaffordable, along with other conditions and the government granting permission to the generic drugmaker to manufacture the same.

It is clear in the policy that India will remain committed to Public health and the Doha Declaration on TRIPS Agreement.

TRIPS, Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights is an agreement with WTO which deals in intellectual property-related issues including compulsory licensing.