Digitisation of patent records drags on

Finding details of a patent can be troublesome at the Patent Information System (PIS) office here. A process of computerisation and digitalisation of records, initiated two years ago, has come to a stand still and browsing through the files for information can even take months.

Both, an inventor or a user can find out if there is a patent related to a particular product from PIS office here, which stores around half of 45 million patents registered in the world. But this can be very tiresome.

There are five PIS offices in the country, with the rest four being in metros. The office here is unique in the sense that it is the only centre which offers services for searching patents.

While patents registered abroad are long since available in digitalised format such as in CDs as well as on the Internet, but around 1.80 lakh Indian patents and related documents are still stored in paper format.

"A snail would move faster," says Mohan Agrawal, the President of Vidarbha Industries Association (VIA), referring to the work at the PIS office here. In case of Indian patents, one has to use conventional methods of applying and then waiting forever till the files are checked physically.

Preservation of files is also a problem.

Though the related industries keep a track on new patents filed by checking the gazette, non-digitalisation is certainly posing practical difficulties.

There were plans to first store the files in CD format and then put the data in cyber space. The data was supposed to be posted on the Internet after trial runs within the department. However, not even the first phase has been completed so far.

C-DAC, a leading IT company, was given the job to format the documents electronically, but it has not been able to undertake the task so far.

The task has now been assigned to some other firms, but little progress has been made on the ground.

The office of the Controller General of Patents refused comments in this regard.

The PIS centre at Nagpur was started in 1980. It also houses a global-level training institute on intellectual property rights.