“Promoting Green Innovation – World IP Day Theme 2009” Are we doing enough?
World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) focused its theme on Promoting Green Innovation this year on the occasion of World IP Day celebrated on 26th April of every year.
The issue to consider is, Are we doing enough to promote green innovation in India?
World IP Day, 2009
Today, I am going to revolve my talk around the adoption of green measures taken by Intellectual Property Offices in India.
In India, the jurisdiction of the Trademarks Office has been divided into five jurisdictions vis-à-vis
- Mumbai
- New Delhi
- Kolkata
- Chennai
- Ahmedabad
The jurisdiction of Patent offices has been divided into four jurisdictions
- Mumbai
Legend release - New Delhi
- Kolkata
- Chennai
The key challenge for Indian Intellectual Property office has been to centralize the complete database and making it a paperless office. It also aimed to provide services online as far as possible. Indian Intellectual Property Office has used the technological measures and tried to Go Green in its efforts from last four years or so.
After the implementation of e-services there has been significant improvements in the efficiency of work of the IP offices in India. There has been following changes in its system of working towards Green methodology -:
1. All the Trademark Journals from the paper format has been shifted to CD format sometime ago. Now, with effect from 1st April, 2009, even the issuance of CD’s have been discontinued and the journals are now available online at no cost for everyone to view and download the same on its systems.
2. The status of applications can now be viewed online without using the resources of IP office
3. There has been significant improvement in making the system work for online Trademark Search and Trade mark Application filing with the Intellectual Property office. All the records whether submitted online or offline are maintained in a database of the IP offices whereas the same had been preserved earlier in the paper formats.
4. In a similar manner, Patent search and application has also been made online unlike the traditional paper filings. Though the new system have many flaws and the Indian people are also expected to take a long time to make a transition to an online environment, the initiative taken by the Indian Intellectual Property Office is certainly plausible.
Though the various initiative have been taken by the Intellectual Property but there are again various concerns that are required to be addressed at the same time.
A. The issue of bandwidth usage required to fetch records from the central servers are making the task difficult for the examiners and the general public due to excess load on the servers.
Freddy Got Fingered movie full B. Due to the excess usage of the server resources the problem of more carbon emissions is going to be there. This will further lead to anti-green applications being adopted by the IPO.
C. The servers need constant maintenance and up gradations that are not seen here in India.
D. Though the new technological measures have been adopted, most officers and public still follow the traditional route for filing the Trademark and Patent Applications due to the ease and authenticity of filing records.
E. There lacks the administrative and technological support to the new systems.
F. The bulk documentation such as opposition proceedings and evidences are still filed and accepted in a physical manner that makes the major step backward if we talk about GREEN Revolution.
Conclusion
There have been various advancements and measures adopted by the Indian Intellectual Property Offices to move and promote green ways for working but there lacks various innovations and strategies which need to be addressed in the future to make the society GREEN.
I am happy to share my views on this World IP Day, 2009 with my fellow colleagues.
Gurpreet Singh
Amarjit & Associates
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