Cabinet approves Patent Prosecution Highway programme

The Cabinet on Wednesday cleared a proposal for adoption of Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) programme by the Indian Patent Office (IPO) with patent offices of various other countries or regions.

The said programme will initially commence between Japan Patent Office (JPO) and Indian Patent Office, under the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks (CGPDTM), on pilot basis for a period of three years only, an official statement said.

Under this pilot programme, the Indian Patent Office may receive patent applications in certain specified technical fields only, namely, electrical, electronics, computer science, information technology, automobiles and metallurgy while JPO may receive applications in all fields of technology, it said.

PPH programme would lead to benefits for the Indian IP office, including reduction in time to dispose patent applications and reduction in pendency of patent applications.

It will lead to improvement in quality of search and examination of patent applications.

It will also provide an opportunity for Indian inventors including MSMEs and startups to get accelerated examination of their patent applications in Japan.

Besides, the Cabinet has cleared the extension/renewal of Pharmaceuticals Purchase Policy (PPP) for pharmaceutical Central Public Sector Undertakings (CPSUs) till their closure/strategic disinvestment.

Extension/renewal of the policy would help the pharma CPSUs in optimum utilisation of their existing facilities, enable them to generate revenues to pay salaries to their employees, help them in keeping the costly, sophisticated machinery in running condition resulting in higher return at the time of disposal in case of CPSUs under closure and better valuation in case of CPSUs under disinvestment, it said.