“Interesting patents, Insect Repellant Fabric, Korea International Youth Olympiad, Scientific Advisers at Indian Patent Office, India’s Global IP Rank Improves, New director at USPTO, Title of an invention, Patent Tip of the Week and other Weekly Patent News,” presented by the Patent attorneys and experts of BananaIP Counsels, India’s leading Patent Firm.
Patent Fact of the Week
The movie industry is based in Hollywood on the west coast because movie makers were trying to get away from Thomas Edison (based in New Jersey). He had patents covering virtually all the movie making process.
Source: Here
Indian Patent Statistics
There has been a drastic decrease in the total number of patent applications published between the 3nd of February 2018 and 9th February 2018. A total of the 606 patent applications have been published, of which, 61 applications account for early publications while 545 applications account for ordinary publications or publications occurring after the 18 month period. A total of 243 applications have been granted between this period which is 33.61% in less than total applications granted between 27th January and 2nd February 2018.
Early Publications
| City | Previous Week | This Week | Percentage of change |
| Delhi | 2 | 4 | 100% increase |
| Mumbai | 38 | 26 | 31.58% decrease |
| Chennai | 24 | 18 | 25% decrease |
| Kolkata | 16 | 13 | 18.75% decrease |
| Total | 80 | 61 | 23.75% decrease |
Ordinary Publications
| City | Previous Week | This Week | Percentage of change |
| Delhi | 440 | 223 | 49.32% decrease |
| Mumbai | 65 | 44 | 32.31% decrease |
| Chennai | 198 | 259 | 30.81% increase |
| Kolkata | 158 | 19 | 87.97% decrease |
| Total | 861 | 545 | 36.7% decrease |
TOTAL PUBLICATIONS (Previous Week): 941
TOTAL PUBLICATIONS (This Week): 606
Percentage difference: 35.6% decrease
PUBLICATIONS UNDER GRANT
| City | Previous Week | This Week | Percentage of change |
| Delhi | 156 | 89 | 42.95% decrease |
| Mumbai | 31 | 22 | 29.03% decrease |
| Chennai | 119 | 67 | 43.7% increase |
| Kolkata | 60 | 65 | 8.33% increase |
| Total | 366 | 243 | 33.61% decrease |
Number of Applications published based on applicant city
Of the total 606 patent applications published in the journal last week, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Kolkata have contributed a total of 93 applications. The total applications from each of the previously mentioned cities for the past week are as follows – 42 from Delhi, 16 from Hyderabad, 15 from Mumbai, 12 from Bangalore and 8 from Chennai.
| List of Cities | 1st January 2018 – 9th February 2018 | 3rd January – 9th February 2018 |
| Delhi | 276 | 42 |
| Mumbai | 130 | 15 |
| Bangalore | 112 | 12 |
| Chennai | 80 | 8 |
| Hyderabad | 75 | 16 |
| Kolkata | 18 | 0 |
Total number of applications published by the Indian Patent Office from the 1st of January 2018 till date: 4683
- Early publications: 390
- Ordinary Publications: 4293
Total number of patents granted by the Indian Patent Office from the 1st of January 2018 till date: 1547
- Delhi – 632
- Mumbai – 209
- Chennai – 486
- Kolkata – 281
First Examination Report (FER) Statistics
A total of 1633 FER’s have been issued last week. Applicants and their agents can check if any of their patent applications have been examined by referring the journal available here.
| City | No. of FER Issued |
| Delhi | 575 |
| Mumbai | 251 |
| Chennai | 522 |
| Kolkata | 285 |
| Total | 1633 |
Indian Industrial Designs Statistics
The designs office has registered a total of 210 designs this week. The total designs registered from the 1st of January 2018 till date now adds to a total of 1270 applications.
Total designs registered in the previous Week: 209
Total designs registered this Week: 210
Percentage Difference: 0.48% increase
Total designs registered from the 1st of January 2018 till date: 1270
Interesting Patents & Designs
This week let’s take a look at some interesting patent applications published last week in the official journal of the Indian Patent Office.
Wear a vest and repel those pesky insects
A patent application filed by two individuals – Akash Sinha & Arpan Joshi titled “INSECT REPELLANT FABRIC” forms part of the journal publication of 9th Feb 2018. The abstract text of the patent application 201711020856 reads as follows:
“The present invention provides insect repellant fabric/clothing treated with microencapsulated DEET (N, N-Diethyl-meta-toluamide). The paddling is done through normal or commercial washing machine. The binding agent used in the process is dimethylol dihydroxyethylene, urea resin. The finished fabric and clothing delivers long lasting insect protection and treated clothing/fabric does not have any order. There is no harmful effect in using the clothing prepared with treated fabric. The finished fabric provides protection form insects including mosquito.”(The abstract has been taken from the patent specification as is and has not been corrected for errors.)
A printer for the visually challenged
The patent application 201611026550 discloses an invention that is likely’ to benefit scores of visually challenged persons across the world. Built by an individual inventor by the name Khushwant Rai, the abstract of the invention titled “BRAILLE PRINTER” reads as follows: “The present invention relates to an improved Braille printer for embossing Braille characters, comprising a cylindrical metal sleeve having a plurality engraved divots wherein the plurality of engraved divots have size similar to standard Braille dots with standard Braille cell distance between adjacent die to allow plurality of strike pins to penetrate into Braille paper, a roller, a driver and an improved printing head wherein the printing head comprises a plurality of strike pins, a plurality of low-power control electromagnets, a plurality of control pins , a force electromagnet and a metallic flap wherein the metallic flap is pulled by the force electromagnet such that the metallic flap takes forward the selected strike pins. The printing head has an aluminium body wherein the aluminium body acts as heat sink.” (The abstract has been taken from the patent specification as is and has not been corrected for errors.)
An Alerting System for a Visually Challenged Pedestrian
It is certainly quite fascinating to note that there are so many inventions out there which seek to benefit the Visually Challenged. In yet another invention seeking to assist the Visually Challenged, inventor Lakshya Pawan Shyam has developed an “Alerting System for a Visually Challenged Pedestrian”. The abstract text of the invention reads as follows: “The present disclosure relates to the field of alerting systems for a visually challenged pedestrian. The alerting system of the present disclosure is configured to alert the visually challenged pedestrian about approaching objects, generate alerts with minimum errors, provide maximum response time to the visually challenged pedestrian, and generates different type of alerts. The system comprises a first wearable device and a second wearable device. The first wearable device includes a plurality of cameras that are configured to sense and provide live feed of an approaching object, a computing device which is configured to receive the live feed from the cameras, and is further configured to generate an alert signal in an event of detection of any object, and a buzzer which is configured to receive the generated alert signal from the computing device and correspondingly generate an alert.” (The abstract has been taken from the patent specification as is and has not been corrected for errors.)
Patent Office Updates
Korea International Youth Olympiad 2018
The Indian patent office has announced that the 3rd annual Korea International Youth Olympiad 4I 2018 will be held on August 10-12, 2018, in Seoul, Korea. There are two main contests for students to participate in: “The Best of Best Invention” and “Team Competition for Creativity”. Please click here for more details. The last date to apply is June 30, 2018.
Invitation for Continuation / enrollment as a Scientific Adviser
The Office of the Controller General of Patents and Trade Marks has invited applications for continuation / enrollment as Scientific Adviser under section 115 of the Patents Act, 1970. Interested candidates may apply to the post by filing an application available on the official portal of the Indian Patent Office. Please click here to download the application form and click here to visit the news notification page of the Indian Patent Office.
Government Updates
India’s rank improves in sixth global IP Index
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Global Innovation Policy Center (GIPC) recently released its sixth annual International IP Index which takes a look at the intellectual property (IP) climate in 50 world economies. The report ranks economies based on 40 unique indicators that benchmark activity critical to innovation development surrounding patent, trademark, copyright, and trade secrets protection.
The report states that India’s overall score has increased substantially from 25% (8.75 out of 35) in the 5th edition of the Index to 30% (12.03 out of 40) in the 6th edition due to a relatively
strong performance in the new indicators as well as positive reform efforts on patentability of computer-implemented inventions (CIIs) and registration procedures for well-known marks.
IPA urges removal of India from USTRs Priority Watch List
The Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance (IPA) has urged the US Trade Representative to consider removing the country from its Priority Watch List based on the fact that a substantial and consistent progress has been made by India in addressing the concerns of the US body, related to intellectual property.
India was last year listed among 11 countries that have been placed on the Priority Watch List of the Special-301 Report.
International Patent Update
Andrei Icanu takes charge as Director of USPTO
Andrei Iancu who was nominated by President Trump last August has assumed his responsibility as the new Director if the United States Patent & Trade Mark Office (USPTO). Andrei who holds a J.D. from the UCLA School of Law is the 59th leader of the USPTO and will now serve as the principal advisor to the President, through the Secretary of Commerce, on domestic and international intellectual property policy matters.
BananaIP’s Patent / Design Tip of the Week
Title of the Invention
First-time inventors and applicants often do not take into account the role a title plays in a patent application. There are repeated instances when patent applicants either insert their name into the title or insert an adjective into the title that lends an advertising feel to it. Both the WIPO guidelines on naming a title as well as the Indian Manual of Patent, Practice and Procedure make it sufficiently clear that “The title should be sufficiently indicative of the subject matter of the invention and shall disclose the specific features of the invention. It need not be the same as the preamble of the main claim. It shall be brief, free from fancy expressions or ambiguity and as precise and definite as possible, but it need not go into the details of the invention itself and should not ordinarily exceed fifteen words. The following are not permissible in the title: Inventor‘s name, the word ‗Patent, words in other languages, the abbreviation etc, fancy words e.g. Washwell Soap, Universal Rest Easy Patent Chair.
Author: BIP’s Patent Attorneys
Led by Senior Partners, Somashekar Ramakrishna, Nitin Nair and Vinita Radhakrishnan, BIP’s Patent Attorneys are among the leading patent practitioners in the country. They work with clients such as Mahindra and Mahindra, Samsung, HCL, Eureka Forbes, and Titan. They specialize in IT/Software, Electronics/Telecom, Mechanical, Automotive, and Bio/Pharma domains, and help clients with patent filing, prosecution, management and strategy in India, and across the world.
The weekly patent news initiative is a part of their pro bono work, and is aimed at spreading patent awareness. You are free to share the news with appropriate attribution and backlink to the source.
If you have any questions, you may write to BIP’s Patent Attorneys – [email protected].
