India, Japan inks pact for expeditious grant of patents

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The patent offices of India and Japan have inked an agreement for expeditious grant of patents to Indian entities and individuals, the commerce and industry ministry said on Thursday.

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved a proposal for Bilateral Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) programme between the Indian Patent Office and patent offices of other interested countries.

"For the first time, the Indian Patent Office is entering into a pilot programme on PPH (Patent Prosecution Highway) with Japan Patent Office," the ministry said in a statement.

"PPH will lead to benefits like reduction in disposal time and pendency of patent applications, consistency in quality of granted patents and an opportunity for Indian inventors including MSMEs and Start-ups of India to get an accelerated examination of their patent applications in Japan," it said.

The programme will initially commence between JPO and Indian Patent Office on a pilot basis for a period of three years.

Under this pilot programme, Indian Patent Office may receive patent applications in certain specified technical fields only, like electrical, electronics, computer science, information technology, physics, civil, mechanical, textiles, automobiles and metallurgy, it said.

Japan Patent Office may receive applications in all fields of technology.

It said that Japanese inventors seeking patent protection in India will now be able to take the benefits of expedited examination in India under this pilot programme.

"Faster grant of patents in India will result in more inbound investments by companies and also the introduction of newer technologies thereby giving a fillip to make in India and increasing employment opportunities. It will also help Indian Startups in patenting in Japan," it added.

In 2014-15, around 6,000 patents were granted and about 15,000 applications were disposed of. It was increased to over 15,000 grants and about 51,000 disposals in 2018-19.

This is likely to reach about 25,000 grants and 60,000 disposals this year, it said.

The examination time of a patent application in 2014-15 which was around 72 months has already been reduced to less than 36 months at present and the same is targeted to further reduce to 12-16 months by March 2021.

In case of expedited examination, the swiftest grant of a patent has been in 67 days from the request for examination, it added. 

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