Patenting in India and Year 2007

Year 2007-08 was a landmark year in the history of Indian patents. This was the first year of India's 11th five year plan. This year Indian patent office was in limelight as only in 2005, India has amended its patent laws to allow product patents. A reasonable time has passed since opening of mail box (or black box) and it was a matter of curiosity to every one that how many patents would be granted as Patent office was under sever work pressure.

In this regard, I came across with an interesting article from EE times, which is as follows:

Concerned by the fact that India lags far behind the world average in patent filings per population, the Indian government pointed to an upswing in the number of patents granted since the launch of a major effort to modernize the patent process here.

The Indian Patent Office granted a record 15,262 patents during 2007-08, the government said, more than double the 7,539 granted the previous year (2006-07) and nearly eight times more than the 1,911 patents granted three years ago, in 2004-05. Historically, the total number of patent filings by residents of India is just three per million population, against a world average of 250.

According to the federal Ministry of Industry and Commerce, the number of patents granted in 2007-08, the first year of India's 11th five-year plan, compares well with the total number awarded during the entire period of the 10th five-year plan, which was just 17,618. The number of patent filings also crossed the 35,000 mark during 2007-08.

The rise is linked to the modernization of the patent and other intellectual-property offices. The Indian government spent more than $35 million in the first phase of the modernization effort, which included setting up integrated intellectual-property offices in four major cities and launching electronic filing of applications.

Another $75 million is to be spent to establish a Trade Marks Registry and Intellectual Property Archives and allied activities. The government has also begun work on a National Institute of Intellectual Property Management to handle training, education, research and think tank functions in intellectual-property rights.

Last October, the World Intellectual Property Organization recognized the Indian Patent Office as an International Searching Authority and an International Preliminary Examining Authority under the Patent Cooperation Treaty.

European Patent Office announces 24 X 7 access to European Patent Register

The much awaited 24 hours online access for European Patent Register including Public File Inspection is now available to all.

Here is the News
EN_____________ Register Plus now available 24/7

We are pleased to announce that Register Plus, comprising the Online European Patent Register and the Online Public File Inspection service, is now available round the clock. The database is updated on a 24-hour cycle. At any one time, the visible content will be as at 19.00 hrs the previous evening. Whilst there will be a short break for maintenance between 05.00 and 05.30 hrs CET daily, we will endeavour to keep all other outages to a minimum, and to inform you in advance of any planned downtime. If you have any queries about Register Plus, write to support@epo.org.

Teva to appeal U.S. District Courts decision over Quetipine

AstraZeneca PLC has won the initial battle over its antipsychotic drug Seroquel, removing the threat of generic competition for the company's second-best-selling product with $4 billion in sales in 2007 after Nexium.

In addition to this AstraZeneca PLC has also sued Sandoz for filing ANDA. Both Teva and Sandoz are in race for generic version of Seroquel and seek approval to market generic versions of SEROQUEL® (quetiapine fumarate tablets) in the US before SEROQUEL's US patent 4879288 expires in Sep. 2011.

For further details refer Wall Street journal and CNN money at
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121495435431321131.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/apwire/851476d46341f0e43802c566ca32b121.htm

Patent Auction – Future of IP Trading?

Recently, the auctions arm of Ocean Tomo, LLC, announced the results of its 2008 European Live IP Auction held on 26th June at the NH Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky. Cumulative sales, including buyer’s premium, totaled $12.6 M, with an average sale price per lot of $437,036, with further transactions anticipated to close in the coming weeks. Further according to press release, for the first time the auction was viewed by several hundred people in closed-circuit locally-hosted events in Singapore, Tokyo, Bangalore, and Seoul. (http://www.businesswire.com/)

This kept me wondering about future of IP trade. Undoubtedly, “The value of an Idea lies in the art of using it”. So are we at the advent of patent auction as a tool for IP trade and business?

Almost 98% of the issued patents (almost 150,000 every year in US itself) are never commercialized. The one reason for this is that patent comes before the sale or commercialization. In today’s market driven world the interest of the patentee also changes with the time and more often patentee do not commercialize their patents as they often give priority to other inventions. This eventually leaves large number of patent files in one’s portfolio as fish files.

Patent auction is a fast way to sell or license such patents. The nature of the patent right creates a big imbalance in terms of knowledge between owner of the patent and the purchaser or licensee; the latter party can minimize the risk of purchasing or licensing a "zero" or low value patent by receiving sufficient time to investigate the patents.

Apart from above-mentioned Ocean Tomo, LLC, there are several other websites, which also provide opportunity to auction the patents. These are http://www.freepatentauction.com/, http://www.ipauctions.com/, http://www.ipmarket.com/, and http://www.shop4patents.com/.
Many companies might believe that patent auction is a swift and effective way to find a purchaser or a licensee for their IP rights. After all, intellectual property is an indispensable asset to companies.

However, though the patent auction has potential to become an effective way for inventors and companies to market and monetize their patents, some critics fear that the auction would only fuel patent trolls, who have no plans to practice the patent, but rather make all their money from licensing, often under threat of litigation. It would be evident from recent Blackberry case that companies are very sensitive to patent trolls. The other blocking aspect for patent auction is that inventors are often attached to their inventions and expect relatively big bucks for their invention.

Notwithstanding the pros and cons of the patent auction, I indeed believe that this could be the wave of the future for monetizing intellectual property, a mechanism for bringing more tangible value and a lucrative market to intellectual property.