‘Overseas registration will help in better patent protection’

Our Corporate Bureau

Mumbai, Aug 10: On account of the inadequate infrastructure in the patent offices in India, it would be more appropriate for Indian inventors and corporates to opt for foreign trade attorneys and register their patents abroad.

“It also helps in protecting your patents though the prosecution costs abroad may be higher when compared with India,” US patent attorney, Donald Bollella said at a seminar on ‘Patents: Prosecution & Licensing Strategies’ held here on Friday.

The Indian patent office, with only 40 examiners is burdened with a backlog of over 30,000 patent applications awaiting clearance. Patent attorney, Dr Prabuddha Ganguli, said that subsequent to the passing of the Second Amendment Bill to the Indian Patent Act, patenting research undertaken particularly in biotechnology would invite inventors in India to file seperate patents in India and abroad.

Dr Ganguli said that convergence or fusion of technologies in a new form is challenging the law. Who owns which part of the technology or fusion and whether it is leading to something new being invented would be deliberated and challenged. This calls for a cautious approach to map the entire invention with connecting parts invented by others, he added.

Dr Ganguli urged inventors to think on protecting their invention project on a concurrent basis rather than lose the project.

Delivering his opening remarks, secretary general of CIPROM (Centre for Intellectual Property Management) Dr GG Nair said that corporates need to ensure that their research teams must have an ongoing continuous interaction with patent attorneys. This will substantially help directing, redirecting or even abandoning and restarting their research projects, he added.