Inventors to gain as India joins patents’ pact

There will be a formal examination of the application and an international search which will give the applicant all published information in the field of invention. As a result the applicant will get instant access to the best information in the subject.

The second crucial advantage is that the PCT provides for a international preliminary examination before the applicant decides to seek protection in a specific country.The applicant has extra time to decide whether he/she wants to file or not in a foreign country after he has filed in his home country. For patents the period is 12 months while for trademarks and industrial design it is six months. If he decides to do file it in other countries, the date of application will be the original date of filing in the home country and not the date of filing in the foreign country.

This is a tremendous advantage for Indian inventors as 147 countries are members of the Paris Convention. The convention is administered by the World Intellectual Property Organisation, a UN agency.

The best part of the decision is that the Government does not have to change its patent laws for this. It only has to amend the Design Act of 1911 which offers reciprocal treatment for patent applications to Commonwealth Countries only. The amendment will allow this treatment to be extended to all countries party to the Paris convention.

Even though the membership of PCT benefits India, successiveGovernments have not been able to get it past the Cabinet for the last four years. Somehow the issue of introducing product patent got mixed up with the membership of Paris Convention. As a result political leaders of different hues kept up a strong opposition to it. The United Front Government had managed to reach a consensus on this issue, but the Government fell before any action could be taken.

After the Bharatiya Janata Party Government took over, fresh efforts were made by the Industry Ministry to get Cabinet approval to join the Paris Convention. The Ministry managed to get a the backing of about 15 Government departments involved in the decision. The Cabinet was also unanimous in clearing the issue.