APAA succeeds in getting IPAB a new home in Delhi; also objects to Patent Office fee hike

The Asian Patent Attorney Association (Indian Group), represented by its Secretary, Prathiba Singh has succeeded in getting the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) a new residence for its hearings in Delhi. This latest victory for APAA, is a part of a long running litigation which APAA initiated before the Delhi High Court back in 2011. This was the same litigation which led to the appointment of Justice Prabha Sridevan as the Chairperson of the IPAB in 2011. The latest order passed by Justice Bhat of the Delhi High Court, on 18 July, mentions that the Delhi bench of the IPAB may now be located at the new Intellectual Property Office building coming up at Dwaraka in New Delhi. 

APAA has been quite regular in taking the government to court over the lack of resources provided to IP institutions. Apart from the IPAB, APAA has also sued the government for the lack of resources with the Copyright Board. We had blogged about that petition over here. 

In other news from APAA, the organization has written to the Controller General of the Patent Office objecting to the proposed fee hike at the Patent Office. We had earlier blogged about the fee hike over here. The communications to the Controller General can be accessed over here and here. In pertinent part, APAA points out how patent applications filing in India have registered much slower growth than in other jurisdictions such as China and Malaysia and cautions that a hike in fees may lead to even those numbers falling. On the e-filing point, the organization informs the Controller General of the American experience with making the switch to the e-filing forms and cautions the IPO about the complexity of making the switch from a physical to electronic format. Another interesting proposition by APAA, is to reduce fees for patent applications filed by research organizations such as CSIR and for all universities. I think that is a great suggestion because as we explained earlier CSIR has been spending a pretty penny on just filing and maintaining its patents without really earning much. It would help if the Government could cut such costs. 

We don’t know of the feedback given by other organizations since the IPO has not made the feedback to the proposed rules public. Hopefully they will do so in the near future.