In a recent notification issued by the DIPP, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry proposes to raise the fee levied for filing and prosecuting patents before the Indian patent office. The notification may be accessed directly here. This gazette notification of May 6, 2013 notifies the Draft Patent Rules 2013 and it is expected that they would be tabled in the upcoming monsoon session of the Parliament. Comments are due by June 21 (Long post follows).
As regards the fee increase, I personally have no issues with the fee being increased - but I would suggest that at least 50% - if not more, of the total fee received at our patent office be granted to the receiving patent office to update its systems, facilities, and Human Resources including increased training of Examiners, and Controllers.
These proposed rules provide an incentive to filers for electronic filing and levies an additional fees of 10% on any filing done on paper. This (incentive for e-filing) is the best part of the notification - the notification proposes an across the board hike of 100% - and existing fees is simply doubled for most of the common tasks. For example, the proposed notification provides that a patent application (provisional or complete) may be filed electronically by an individual for Rs.2000, and for Rs.8000 by - other than natural persons. Similarly the costs for publication have increased to Rs. 2500 and Rs.10000 for the above categories respectively.
Indeed, there are cases where it would seem that it is unreasonable and unjust to increase the fees drastically and simply double it. This is when practitioners face tremendous problems when dealing with the patent office. For instance, a regular reader of our blog (who for obvious reasons wishes to remain anonymous) sent in the following comment (some formatting changes and minor edits) to me:
"Considering that there is hardly any improvement in the services provided by the Patent Office and as you are aware, we are perhaps the only patent office in the world who can't handle modernization. Digitization has made matters worse and our patent office has become a slave of the electronic mode. There are many problems which we face everyday and which don't seem to be fading any soon. I have been practicing since the past X years and have also seen the Patel Nagar days but I feel, we have not improved in the real sense. Sometimes, I feel that we were better off when the Patent Office used to handle files manually. At least, we could finalize cases by the last date, whether rejection or grant. Now, applications are pending for years, even after the final deadline is over for want of review by Controllers. The reason given is mostly, the module takes time since scanning etc. is slow thus causing heavy backlog. Even orders in case of hearings under Section 14 have a backlog of many months or even years. Interpretation of provisions, especially pertaining to pharma and biotech has reached the lowest ebb in terms of understanding of our Examiners and Controllers who are not even interested in listening to a reasoned argument well supplemented by technical or legal submissions. Most of the time, the responses are not even read properly..."
"We are already witnessing a drop in the number of filings in India by multinational companies, especially the pharma and biotech sector, what with most of these companies shifting base to other pastures like China. Arbitrary procedural changes time and again by the IPO make things worse and extremely applicant unfriendly."
This anonymous reader then concludes:
"With this backdrop, I find it completely unreasonable and unjustified to have a 100% hike in official fees across the Schedule. It is definitely a suicidal mission which will have even worse effect on the number of applications being filed in India, by Indians as well as foreigners...."
It is extremely difficult to argue against the "public interest" argument raised on account of the fees raise: I, however, have a different opinion re the fee raise and consider it as a part of the overhaul of our IP system. For example, upon review of the latest filing data by WIPO - it is clear that the overall patent filing in India has increased to a great extent. WIPO publication (statistics) 941_2012 concludes that patent filing in India has increased with foreign applicants filing a major share of the patent applications. This increase in fee also needs to be contrasted with other countries: Even after taking into account the increased fee, Indian patent filing overall are at one-fifth US / European levels.
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