Patent statistics, US PTAB upholds Motorola’s patents, Nvidia accused of patent infringement and more

“Indian Patent Statistics, Interesting Inventions, IPA4SME Campaign begins with a bang, first call for applications is now open, Vietnam in talks to develop its IP strategy by the year 2030, European Patent Office holds Search Matters conference in Munich, Germany, USPTO maintains validity of Motorola Solution’s patents despite objections raised by Hytera, Nvidia faces accusations of patent infringement” presented by the Patent attorneys and experts of BananaIP Counsels, India’s leading Patent Firm.

Quote of the Week

If you didn’t have patents, no one would bother to spend money on research and development. But with patents, if someone has a good idea and a competitor can’t copy it, then that competitor will have to think of their own way of doing it. So then, instead of just one innovator, you have two or three people trying to do something in a new way.” – James Dyson, Founder and CEO of Dyson Ltd.

Indian Patent Statistics

A total of 788 patent applications have been published in the 19th issue of the Patent Journal, 2019. Out of the 788 applications, 142 applications account for early publications while 646 applications account for ordinary publications or publications occurring after the 18 – month period. A total of 416 applications were granted last week thereby marking a decrease of about 15.44% in grants.

Early Publications

City Previous Week This Week Percentage of change
Delhi 12 18 50% increase
Mumbai 25 82 227.99% increase
Chennai 43 41 4.65% decrease
Kolkata 1 1 No change
Total 81 142 75.30% increase

Ordinary Publications

City Previous Week This Week Percentage of change
Delhi 375 223 40.53% increase
Mumbai 64 49 23.43% decrease
Chennai 231 362 56.70% increase
Kolkata 97 12 87.62% decrease
Total 767 646 15.77% decrease

TOTAL PUBLICATIONS (Previous Week): 848

TOTAL PUBLICATIONS (This Week): 788

Percentage difference: 7.07% decrease

First Examination Report (FER) Statistics

A total of 1810 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 704
Mumbai 247
Chennai 634
Kolkata 225
Total 1810

 PUBLICATIONS UNDER GRANT

City Previous Week This Week Percentage of change
Delhi 176 128 27.27% decrease
Mumbai 52 58 11.53% increase
Chennai 170 174 2.35% increase
Kolkata 94 56 40.42% decrease
Total 492 416 15.44% decrease

 Number of Applications published based on Applicant city

Of the total 788 patent applications published in the journal last week, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Kolkata have contributed a total of 66 applications. The total applications from each of the previously mentioned cities are as follows – 12 applications from Delhi, 10 applications from Bangalore, 18 applications from Chennai, 7 applications from Hyderabad and 3 applications from Kolkata.

List of Cities 1st January 2019 to 10th May 2019 3rd May 2019 – 10th May 2019
Delhi 425 12
Mumbai 258 16
Bangalore 501 10
Chennai 468 18
Hyderabad 170 7
Kolkata 121 3

 Total number of applications published by the Indian Patent Office from the 1st of January 2019 till date: 15195

  • Early publications: 1518
  • Ordinary Publications: 13677

Total number of patents granted by the Indian Patent Office from the 1st of January 2019 till date: 7410

  • Delhi – 2640
  • Mumbai – 1038
  • Chennai – 2467
  • Kolkata – 1265

Indian Industrial Design Statistics

The designs office has registered a total of 246 designs this week. The total designs registered from the 1st of January 2019 till date now adds to a total of 5406 applications.

Total designs registered in the previous Week: 254

Total designs registered this Week: 246

Percentage Difference: 3.14% decrease

Total designs registered from the 1st of January 2019 till date: 5406

Interesting Inventions of the Week

Invention 1: WASTE PLASTIC BOTTLE REINFORCED CONCRETE BRICKS FOR GREEN BUILDING

 Patent Application No.: 201741039392

Applicant: Mr. H. MOHIT

Abstract: “The disposal of high quantity of waste materials like polythene, plastic bags, bottles etc. which are provoked in large amount and cause damage to the environment. All types of waste plastics needs huge areas for storage due to it cannot be recycled completely at once. Already, different investigations are identified for environmental friendly and safe disposal of plastics. Recently, waste plastic aggregates are added in concrete to avoid the direct contact with the environment due to concrete have higher life of service. Furthermore, this technique is not dominant for the disposal of plastic wastes. In this present work, the plastic bottle is completely sealed and reinforced within the concrete block in order to manage the waste and improve the properties of concrete blocks.”(The abstract has been provided as is and has not been corrected for errors)

Invention 2: INTELLIGENT CHARGING OF MULTIPLE ELECTRONIC DEVICE WITH A SMART CHARGER

Patent Application No.: 201741039886

Applicant: Chodisetty Teja Kanaka Siva Ganesh

Abstract: “Intelligent Charging of Multiple Electronic Devices with a Smart Charger The present invention proposes a mobile charger to charge portable devices based on their respective charging specification. The charger can communicate with the mobile phone through Bluetooth or USB cable and the like wired or wireless communications. The application recognizes the model number and name of the device and retrieves the battery specification of the portable devcie from the srever. Based on the battery specifications, the charger can control the output power to the portable handset. The charger stores the summary of the charging in the drives or in any storage means such as a database, google drive and the like. The charger can work through a near field communication (NFC) which enables the communication possible between the charger and the mobile. The poratable device is linked with the charger through NFC card attched on to the charger to open the application. The charger alerts the user through an audio alert and with or without a notification after the battery or power source of the portable device is fully charged. The charger is integrated with an LED to indicate the percentage of charging of the battery or power source of the portable device and further the indication may include colours for different stages of charging by displaying different colours with respect to the percentage of charge. The charger can store the summary of the time consumed to charge the device in a storage means such as a databse or google drive and the like. If there is a power cut while charging, the charger can start functioning within 30 seconds after the power supply is resumed. The charger transfers the standard power to the device, if the device doesn’t have an application or the device is switched off.”(The abstract has been provided as is and has not been corrected for errors)

Patent / Design Infringements, Disputes, Licensing and Settlement

USPTO maintains validity of Motorola Solution’s patents despite objections raised by Hytera

The US Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) last week issued its final written decision with respect to the Inter Partes Reviews of Motorola Solutions’ U.S. Patent Nos. 8,116,284 and 6,591,111. The patents mainly relate to Motorola’s time-division multiple access (TDMA) and group radio communication system technology. The PTAB rejected the validity objections raised by Hytera Communications Corporation Limited with respect to U.S. Patent No. 8,116,284 and upheld the validity of a number of claims of U.S. Patent No. 6,591,111.

Nvidia faces accusations of patent infringement

Subsidiaries of Xperi Corp, a California-based company that licenses intellectual property have filed a patent infringement suit against Nvidia in the U.S. District Court of Delaware for patent infringement. Nvidia has been accused of violating five of the company’s patents for technology used in its gaming and supercomputer GPUs. Xperi has previously sued and won settlements against both Samsung and Broadcom over three of these same patents. Both Samsung and Broadcom settled with Xperi for undisclosed sums and entered into multi-year patent licensing agreements with the company.

International Patent Updates

IPA4SME Campaign begins with a bang, first call for applications is now open

In association with CARSA, University of Alicante and GOPA Com, and co-funded by the COSME program of the European Union, the IPA4SME Campaign has been launched and is currently on the lookout for SME’s that require assistance with regard to their Intellectual Property. The Campaign, “Boosting the use of Intellectual Property (IP) with an action specifically designed for Innovative SME’s”, in short IPA4SME brings with it an exclusive opportunity for SME’s to acquire “Intellectual Property Valorization and Protection.” The Campaign proposes to provide SME’s with the following key services – Pre – diagnostic services in relation to IP, from qualified experts; opportunity to be reimbursed for up to 50% of Patent Attorney Fees and 75% of the cost of a European Patent Application. SME’s will have the opportunity to receive financial support up to 15000 EUR. All SME’s who have received the Seal of Excellence, a quality label awarded to project proposals submitted to Horizon 2020 (EU’s research and innovation funding) are eligible to apply for the benefits. The first call for application began on 6th May, 2019 and is expected to remain open until 7th June 2019. Applicants are encouraged to apply as early as possible due to the availability of limited funds. Click here to access the official IPA4SME website.

Vietnam in talks to develop its IP strategy by the year 2030

The Ministry of Science and Technology of Vietnam and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) held a joint workshop in Hanoi on May 10th, 2019. The primary objective of the workshop was to discuss the role on intellectual property in promoting socio-economic development in Vietnam. In addition to discussions related to the different ways in which intellectual property could be etched into socio-economic developmental policies, topics also involved different means to control the role of the ministries in incorporating IP policies. Along with the results of the discussions, the recommendations of field experts will be considered while drafting the National Intellectual Property Strategy.

European Patent Office holds Search Matters conference in Munich, Germany

The European Patent Office held the annual Search Matters conference at its headquarters in Munich between 6th and 8th May 2019. The event primarily offered training to patent search professionals from different parts of the world. Discussions were based on the different search strategies and techniques employed by the Patent Office. Apart from panel discussions, a number of activities that involved interactive workshops, lectures, at the desk sessions were held in order to provide best working knowledge. The Search Matters conference this year consisted of a special panel discussion on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its consequences on searching.

EPO President, António Campinos reportedly said “In the future, AI will be one of several tools that support prior art searching and in doing so, ensure that the quality of our services remains high while improving operational efficiency.”

All sessions appeared to have offered a unique first – hand experience on the procedure that an Examiner follows at the time of performing a search in a specific field. In addition to this, the workshop revolved around the challenges of searching in fields like automotive, chemistry and ICT. The EPO will make all lectures and discussions to be available on its website, shortly.

Authored and compiled by Vibha Amarnath

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]

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