Posts Tagged: "Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade"

India Amends Patent Rules and Reduces Fees by 80% for Educational Institutions

On September 21, 2021, India’s Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) under India’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry published amended Patents Rules, 2021, to amend the 2003 Patents Rules. The amendment now includes a new category, “eligible educational institutions,” which qualifies for the same reduced fees as natural persons, startups, and small entities. This means any “eligible educational institution” will pay 80% reduced fees for the entire patent filing and prosecution, thereby hopefully incentivizing those institutions to apply for more patents, and bringing India a step closer to becoming a global player in patent filings.

Parliamentary Committee Report Outlines Policy Changes to Improve Indian IP Regime

Despite India’s progress in many areas, from science to literature to technology, protection for intellectual property rights (IPR) is a topic that has come under scrutiny. The IP laws in India have remained vastly unchanged and unreviewed over the past few decades. Recently, however, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Commerce (PSCC) decided to review IPRs in India. The Committee, led by Chairman Shri V. Vijayasai Reddy, was made up of 11 members of the Rajya Sabha (upper house) and 21 members from the Lok Sabha (lower house). On July 23, 2021, the PSCC presented a report to the Rajya Sabha titled Review of the Intellectual Property Rights Regime in India (the Report). In the Report, the Committee pointed out the “challenges in strengthening the country’s IPR regime, the related procedural and substantive constraints, legal aspects and other issues, such as low awareness of IPR, counterfeiting and piracy, IP financing, and IPRs in agriculture and pharmaceutical sector, etc.”