Faster Clearance for Women Entrepreneurs

With an aim of promoting women entrepreneurship in the country, The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), allows expeditious examination of a patent application from a female innovator. It has created the draft rules to amend the Patent Rules, 2003 which include that if the applicant or one of the applicants in a group is female, then the application would get an expedited examination by the Indian Patent Office.

This step is in favour of promoting women entrepreneurship in the country. It is also true that there are many women entrepreneurs in the country but very few come to seek patents, unfortunately. Not only this, DIPP is taking other steps too to reduce time to examine and grant patents as well as trademarks, which include hiring more manpower and increase the use of technology. The motive behind this initiative is to reduce the patent examination to 18 months by March 2020 from the present 5 to 7 years. However, firstly one needs to file an application, publish the patent journal, perform its examination and then approve. If there is any objection raised on the matter or if there is any problem in documentation like, missing document or wrong document, then the process may take longer time as all steps are time consuming. India has granted 13,045 patents in the year of 2017-18 much more than done in the previous year. In previous fiscal, the number achieved was only 9,847. According to experts, domestic players get only 17-18 percent of patent registrations annually, with foreign players accounting for the rest. National Intellectual Property Organisation President TC James said “Fast clearance of applications for women is a welcome step as it would promote innovation". According to the World Intellectual Property Organisation, India is ranked as the seventh largest patent filing office in the world. This initiative is expected to assume significance as the ministry is taking steps to fast track examination of patent applications particularly for startups. It is expected that the said draft rules will be taken into consideration after the expiry of a period of thirty days. PTI reported quoting an official "The move would help in promoting women entrepreneurship in the country.” So far there was no such provision. This will lead to definitely having more women entrepreneur patents in the country. In addition to promoting women entrepreneurship it will also lead to growth of our country.

By: Anuja Arora

Content: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/policy/patent-applications-by-female-innovators-to-get-faster-clearance-draft-rules/articleshow/67113224.cms