“Call for Papers on IP rights by Nirma University, Apple in no mood to relent in fight against VirnetX, Munich Court dismisses four of Qualcomm’s eight patent infringement suits, Tesla Motors opens all its patents for use, WIPO Technology Trends 2019 – “Artificial Intelligence” and other Weekly Patent News updates” presented by the Patent attorneys and experts of BananaIP Counsels, India’s leading Patent Firm.
Quote of the Week
“If you think good design is expensive, you should look at the cost of bad design.” Ralf Speth, CEO of Jaguar Land Rover.
Indian Patent Statistics
A total of 889 patent applications have been published in the 5th issue of the Patent Journal, 2019. Out of the 889 applications, 65 applications account for early publications while 824 applications account for ordinary publications or publications occurring after the 18-month period. A total of 444 applications were granted this week marking an increase of about 19.03% in grants.
Early Publications
| City | Previous Week | This Week | Percentage of change |
| Delhi | 10 | 4 | 60% decrease |
| Mumbai | 71 | 23 | 67.61% decrease |
| Chennai | 50 | 38 | 24% decrease |
| Kolkata | 6 | 0 | 100% decrease |
| Total | 137 | 65 | 52.55% decrease |
Ordinary Publications
| City | Previous Week | This Week | Percentage of change |
| Delhi | 334 | 556 | 66.47% increase |
| Mumbai | 62 | 96 | 54.84% increase |
| Chennai | 104 | 139 | 33.65% increase |
| Kolkata | 12 | 33 | 175% increase |
| Total | 512 | 824 | 60.94% increase |
TOTAL PUBLICATIONS (Previous Week): 649
TOTAL PUBLICATIONS (This Week): 889
Percentage difference: 36.98% increase
First Examination Report (FER) Statistics
A total 2238 FER’s have been issued last week. Applicants and their agents can check if any of their patent applications have been examined by referring to the journal available here.
| City | No. of FER Issued |
| Delhi | 934 |
| Mumbai | 300 |
| Chennai | 650 |
| Kolkata | 354 |
| Total | 2238 |
PUBLICATIONS UNDER GRANT
| City | Previous Week | This Week | Percentage of change |
| Delhi | 140 | 164 | 17.14% increase |
| Mumbai | 45 | 62 | 37.78% increase |
| Chennai | 133 | 154 | 15.79% increase |
| Kolkata | 55 | 64 | 16.36% increase |
| Total | 373 | 444 | 19.03% increase |
Number of Applications published based on applicant city
Of the total 889 patent applications published in the journal last week, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Kolkata have contributed a total of 120 applications. The total applications from each of the previously mentioned cities are as follows – 20 applications from Chennai, 29 applications from Bangalore, 28 applications from Delhi, 10 applications from Hyderabad, 21 applications from Mumbai and 12 application from Kolkata.
| List of Cities | 1st January 2019 – 1st February 2019 | 26th January 2019 – 1st February 2019 |
| Delhi | 86 | 28 |
| Mumbai | 67 | 21 |
| Bangalore | 146 | 29 |
| Chennai | 232 | 20 |
| Hyderabad | 46 | 10 |
| Kolkata | 32 | 12 |
Total number of applications published by the Indian Patent Office from the 1st of January 2019 till date: 4070
- Early publications: 377
- Ordinary Publications: 3693
Total number of patents granted by the Indian Patent Office from the 1st of January 2019 till date: 1606
- Delhi – 574
- Mumbai – 196
- Chennai – 562
- Kolkata – 271
Indian Industrial Designs Statistics
The designs office has registered a total of 436 designs this week. The total designs registered from the 1st of January 2019 till date now adds to a total of 1329 applications.
Total designs registered in the previous Week: 415
Total designs registered this Week: 436
Percentage Difference: 5.06% increase
Total designs registered from the 1st of January 2019 till date: 1329
Interesting Inventions of the Week
Invention 1 – SYSTEM AND METHOD OF PROVIDING ASSISTANCE FOR MONITORING LAND ENCROACHMENT
Patent Application No.: 201941002882
Applicant: Dr. S. Viswanadha Raju et. al
Abstract: “Present Land is a valuable asset and need to be monitored by methods such as regularly visiting the site manually where land is located, fixing up sign boards and erecting boundary pillars to protect from encroachment. All these mechanisms to monitor land encroachment and misuse imply to be unsafe and time-consuming. The present invention provides system and method of providing assistance for monitoring land encroachment through automated system using images captured by satellite, aerial drones and other fixed platforms such as surveillance camera as requested by the individual and organization owning the land. The image processing module specified in the invention receives as input the images captured by image capturing unit and compares with the archived land image in the database to identify any difference or deviation in land boundary through encroachment. The present invention also supports the land owners by sending alerts to their smart device if any difference and undesired actions identified within land boundaries. The end user also receives timely report about the status of their land in their smart device.” (The abstract has been provided as is and has not been corrected for errors)
Invention 2 – INCIDENT PREDICTION AND PREVENTION
Patent Application No.: 201711026702
Applicant: Accenture Global Solutions Limited
Abstract: “In some examples, incident prediction and prevention may include ascertaining a plurality of past incidents, clustering the plurality of past incidents to generate a plurality of incidents clusters, and identifying, for each past incident of the plurality of past incidents that is in a respective incidents cluster of the plurality of incidents clusters, a time of occurrence. Incident prediction and prevention may include ascertaining a new incident, assigning the new incident to an incidents cluster of the plurality of incidents clusters, and determining, for the assigned incidents cluster, at least one further predicted incident associated with at least one further corresponding incidents cluster. Further, incident prediction and prevention may include determining a resolution to the at least one further predicted incident, and preventing occurrence of the at least one further predicted incident by executing the determined resolution to the at least one further predicted incident.” (The abstract has been provided as is and has not been corrected for errors)
Indian Patent Updates
Institute of Law, Nirma University, invites Papers on IP Rights
The Centre for Intellectual Property Rights established at Institute of Law, Nirma University, Gujarat calls for papers on current topics of Intellectual Property Rights. Exceptional papers will we selected in order to be published in the Journal of the Intellectual Property Law, 2018-2019 (4th Issue). Apart from Research Papers, the University is open to accepting case studies, articles and even book reviews. The subject matter must revolve around modern day IP Rights; contributions from students, professionals and academicians are welcome. All entries can be sent to [email protected], the same must be submitted by 15th February, 2019. Click here to access the official brochure.
Patent / Design Infringements, Disputes, Licensing and Settlement
Apple in no mood to relent in fight against VirnetX
Last week, Apple Inc. filed its 5th Appeal against VirnetX, in the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. According to Apple, the four patents at issue, in no way infringe VirnetX’ patents as it specifically redesigned FaceTime to avoid any similarities. Apple has submitted that the defendant has falsely claimed and led the court to believe so. The dispute involves four essential patents namely – U.S. Patent Nos. 6,502,135, 7,490,151, 7,418,504 & 7,921,211. The Appeal, consisting of 474 pages can be found here.
Munich Court dismisses four of Qualcomm’s eight patent infringement suits
The Munich district court last week dismissed four of the total of eight lawsuits by Qualcomm Inc. against Apple Inc. The patents which essentially relate to the search features offered by Apple’s devices namely, Siri and Spotlight Search were found to be non-infringing of Qualcomm’s patents.
Previously, in December last year, the company won a battle against Apple when another German Court explicitly banned all imports and sales of iPhone 7 and 8, in Germany. Even though this came as an early win for Qualcomm, the dispute is far from over. Both the companies have instituted a number of lawsuits, all over the world.
International Patent Updates
Tesla Motors opens all its patents for use
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, announced in a blog post that all of Tesla’s patents would be available to the public. The blog post, published on Tesla’s website, further said that the it would refrain from filing infringement suits against those who used their patents in good faith. Musk went on to explain that patents were an essential way of protecting one’s inventions from being used by rivals, especially for Tesla against other electric car manufacturers. This led Tesla to vigorously obtain patents. However, Musk is now of the opinion that patents “serve merely to stifle progress, entrench the positions of giant corporations and enrich those in the legal profession, rather than the actual inventors.” It would be impossible to fight carbon crisis as the number of gasoline cars in use are immense. Therefore, the releasing of patents is to encourage the manufacture of other electric cars.
WIPO Technology Trends 2019 – “Artificial Intelligence”
The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) presented the 1st Edition of the series – WIPO Technology Trends with the theme “Artificial Intelligence.” According to the report that primarily recognizes AI in different sectors across the globe, UK, Germany, Canada and India are the leading countries in AI patent filings. IBM having 8,290 AI patent applications and Microsoft with 5,930 applications are currently in the lead. There has been an increase of 175% with regard to the number of patent applications involving AI between 2013 and 2016. In 2015 India ranked 8th in the number of AI filings and has managed to maintain this growth by showing an increase of 33%. To access the full report, click here.
Compiled by Vibha Amarnath & Gaurav Mishra
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];
