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NEW
DELHI: The Government is not averse to the idea of setting
up Special Intellectual Property (IP) Courts for effective
and expeditious enforcement of IP rights, even though Minister
of State for Industry Ashwani Kumar feels that “India’s
IPR regime is not just TRIPS compliant, it goes beyond and
meets with India’s international obligations.”
Inaugurating
the World IP Day seminar organized by Ficci over the weekend,
Kumar said this "issue confronts China, certainly not
India."
“The
problem could be with some delays in enforcement as far as
India is concerned. To tackle this, special IP courts could
be considered. We will talk to the judiciary, with the Chief
Justice of India and the Law Ministry, and consult them on
whether such courts are at all necessary,” Kumar added.
Kumar
was responding to reporters on Ficci’s inputs to the
government for making enforcement of IP rights more effective
which include setting up of specialized courts or summary
trial procedures for handling counterfeit and piracy cases;
exemplary punishment and punitive damages to deter potential
infringers and declaring offences of counterfeit and piracy
as cognizable and non-bailable.
He
said the government had launched a Rs 200 million awareness
campaign to carry the message of the importance of IP protection
throughout the country. The campaign will seek to convey to
the people the crucial link between innovation, IP protection,
competitiveness, productivity and growth.
The
Minister said the steps taken by the government during the
last few years had borne fruit. Patent filing has gone up
seven-fold from under 5000 in 1999-2000 to over 35,000 in
2007-08. The number of patents granted recorded a steep increase
from 1911 in 2004-05 to 15,261 in 2007-0, a growth of almost
800 per cent.
Trade mark registrations have also gone up from 11,190 in
2002-03 to 1,01,300 in 2007-08. In fact, the number of trade
marks registered during the last three years is more than
the total number of trade marks registered in all the previous
years, he said.
The
second phase of the modernization of IP registries, the minister
said, was an ambitious project with an allocation of Rs 3.20
billion. The project aims at further strengthening the capabilities
of IP offices and to develop a vibrant IP regime in the country.
The project also aims at developing infrastructure to facilitate
the functioning as an ISA and IPEA by the Patent Office and
to establish a National Institute of Intellectual Property
Management (NIIPM) at Nagpur as a national centre of excellence
for training, education, research, and a think tank in the
field of IP.
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