“Indian patent statistics, Interesting inventions, Smart Streetlight with notifier, India and US engage in first ever dialogue on IP, Broadcom files patent infringement suit against Volkswagen, Sony and Lenovo sign design patent license agreement, EPO Joins WIPO’s Digital Access Service (DAS) and other Weekly Patent News updates,” presented by the Patent attorneys and experts of BananaIP Counsels, India’s leading Patent Firm.
Design Quote of the Week
“Design has allowed us to stand out; to look different and show that difference boldly” – Joseph D Mansueto, American billionaire entrepreneur.
Indian Patent Statistics
A total of 716 patent applications have been published in the 44th issue of the patent journal. Out of the 716 applications, 75 applications account for early publications while 641 applications account for ordinary publications or publications occurring after the 18-month period. A total of 183 applications have been granted this week thereby marking a decrease of about 10.73% in total grants as compared to the preceding week.
Early Publications
| City | Previous Week | This Week | Percentage of change |
| Delhi | 29 | 1 | 96.55% decrease |
| Mumbai | 16 | 48 | 200% increase |
| Chennai | 84 | 23 | 72.61% decrease |
| Kolkata | 0 | 3 | — |
| Total | 129 | 75 | 41.86% decrease |
Ordinary Publications
| City | Previous Week | This Week | Percentage of change |
| Delhi | 478 | 344 | 28.03% decrease |
| Mumbai | 132 | 88 | 33.33% decrease |
| Chennai | 264 | 201 | 23.86% decrease |
| Kolkata | 30 | 8 | 73.33% decrease |
| Total | 904 | 641 | 29.09% decrease |
TOTAL PUBLICATIONS (Previous Week): 1033
TOTAL PUBLICATIONS (This Week): 716
Percentage difference: 30.68% decrease
First Examination Report (FER) Statistics
A total of 1463 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 | 578 |
| Mumbai | 194 |
| Chennai | 475 |
| Kolkata | 216 |
| Total | 1463 |
PUBLICATIONS UNDER GRANT
| City | Previous Week | This Week | Percentage of change |
| Delhi | 49 | 54 | 10.20% increase |
| Mumbai | 26 | 20 | 23.07% decrease |
| Chennai | 73 | 74 | 1.36% decrease |
| Kolkata | 38 | 34 | 10.52% decrease |
| Total | 186 | 182 | 2.15% decrease |
Number of Applications published based on applicant city
Of the total 1033 patent applications published in the journal last week, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Kolkata have contributed a total of 35 applications. The total applications from each of the previously mentioned cities are as follows – 1 application from Bangalore, 5 applications from Mumbai, 8 applications from Delhi, 18 applications from Chennai, 3 applications from Hyderabad.
| List of Cities | 1st January 2018 – 2nd November 2018 | 26th October 2018 – 2nd November 2018 |
| Delhi | 904 | 6 |
| Mumbai | 795 | 17 |
| Bangalore | 973 | 15 |
| Chennai | 588 | 8 |
| Hyderabad | 413 | 6 |
| Kolkata | 228 | 5 |
Total number of applications published by the Indian Patent Office from the 1st of January 2018 till date: 32997
- Early publications: 3174
- Ordinary Publications: 29938
Total number of patents granted by the Indian Patent Office from the 1st of January 2018 till date: 11283
- Delhi – 4237
- Mumbai – 1417
- Chennai – 3592
- Kolkata – 2227
Indian Industrial Designs Statistics
The designs office has registered a total of 129 designs this week. The total designs registered from the 1st of January 2018 till date now adds to a total of 7049 applications.
Total designs registered in the previous Week: 50
Total designs registered this Week: 129
Percentage Difference: 158% increase
Total designs registered from the 1st of January 2018 till date: 7049
Interesting Inventions of the Week
Invention 1 – SMART STREETLIGHT WITH NOTIFIER
Patent Application No.: 201821038625
Applicant: VAISHNAVI SWAMI
Abstract: “A system to make efficient use of street light. The system will be included within street lights to detect darkness and before getting on and if even after detection of darkness if light is off then notification should be sent to the central office where switches are situated. This notification should be given after every Ihour so that there would be no useless street lights. The system will help citizens in many ways like from robbery or any misguiding people. Also, there are some street lights which are of all time so this can be avoided. Next, also it happens that lights remain on even at day time. This will waste energy which is most needed today. So, by this system once darkness is gone lights will be automatically off” (The abstract has been provided as is and has not been corrected for errors)
Invention 2 – A SYSTEM FOR IDENTIFICATION OF SUSPECTED CRIMINAL WITH NEUTRAL OR WHISPERED VOICE FROM THE TELEPHONE/MOBILE PHONE NETWORK AND INTEGRATED REPORT GENERATION
Patent Application No.: 201821039909
Applicant: Vijay Madhukar Sardar, Dr. Suresh Damodar Shirbahadurkar
Abstract: “Nowadays, a forensic investigation from the voice is gaining prime importance. In case of the information about the criminal activities like terrorist attacks, riots, robbery chain incidences, the tracing the phone conversations in the suspected area is recommended. The automatic system can be used by the phone gateways in the area of interest. The whispering speech is generally used by the criminals for any one of the reasons like secrecy of confidential data, avoiding to be overheard at public places or hide the identity intentionally. However, acoustic properties of whispered speech drastically change compared to neutral speech which makes the task of speaker identification in whispered mode difficult. Hence, timbrel features are used here due to their multidimensional nature and perceptual ability. As all the features will not contribute equally to the identification accuracy. Hence only efficient timbrel feature are sorted. This method will reduce the size of the feature vector and hence the system complexity and processing time. K-NN classifier is investigated here with all the variants and used with the best-proven combinations for our system. The system generates combined reports consisting of full information of suspected criminal and its conversation in the text form.” (The abstract has been provided as is and has not been corrected for errors)
Indian Patent Updates
India and US engage in first ever dialogue on IP
India and US engaged in a first ever dialogue on IP last week in New Delhi to deepen bilateral strategic cooperation on IP policy. The dialogue launched by US Chamber of Commerce’s Global Innovation Policy Center is scheduled to convene annually alternating between New Delhi and Washington, DC. The discussions during the dialogue included a focus on joint opportunities and challenges related to whole spectrum of IP, including patent filing, regulatory landscape, copyright and infringement, technology transfer, and enforcement.
Patent /Design Infringements, Disputes, Licensing and Settlements
Broadcom files patent infringement suit against Volkswagen
U.S. semiconductor supplier Broadcom has filed a patent infringement suit against German automaker Volkswagen. The suit filed in Munich and Mannheim, Germany claims that Volkswagen is violating 18 patents belonging to Broadcom relating to navigation and entertainment systems used in several car models. Broadcom is allegedly seeking damages as well as an injunction on the sale of the infringing models. Broadcom has filed similar cases in the US against Toyota and Panasonic, pushing the companies to settle before a court ruling.
Sony and Lenovo sign design patent license agreement
Sony Interactive Entertainment and Lenovo have entered into a design patent licensing agreement which lets Lenovo use Sony’s PlayStation VR headset design for its Mirage Solo headset. The exact terms of the agreement have not been revealed.
International Patent News
EPO Joins WIPO’s Digital Access Service (DAS)
The European Patent Office has now decided to participate in WIPO’s Digital Access Service (DAS) for the exchange of certified copies of priority documents from 1st November 2018.
DAS supports the automatic electronic exchange of priority documents within participating patent offices (participating Offices). Applicants may request the Office of First Filing (OFF) to make certified copies of previously filed patent applications available to the DAS system and then request Offices of Second Filing (OSF) to retrieve the copies via DAS.
The purpose of DAS is to establish a cost- and time-effective electronic system for processing and exchanging priority documents within participating Offices, by relieving the applicant of the need to submit the documents to the OSF.
About 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]
