India to double manpower to process IP applications: Piyush Goyal

Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal Friday said that manpower will be doubled for processing Intellectual Property applications, and the process would be streamlined and made more transparent.
At the National Intellectual Property Conference, he said the government’s
focus is to root out frivolous pre-grant opposition and suggested if criminal proceedings can be initiated against such people.

“We are doubling the manpower in our IP ecosystem. We will have much more examiners and joint controllers so that we can give in a time bound manner all approvals,” Goyal said.


He said the government’s focus is to root out frivolous pre grant opposition.

“I have suggested if we can initiate criminal proceedings against people who just put in pre grant opposition for the sake of harassment or are habitual (in doing this),” Goyal said.

At the same event, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh that the Indian Patent Office will hire 900 more people to enhance manpower for processing the increasing number of intellectual property applications. Patent filing has increased ten times and trademark application filing six times since 2016, he said.

Goyal also announced plans for a 100% digitalization of the Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs, and Trade Marks for enhanced efficiency.