 "Wait time for patent examination to be cut to 18 months by March 2018")
In a major relief from the long wait for getting patents examined, the government is confident of reducing the time taken for examining patents to 18 months from the current 48 months.
The reduction will be in place by March 2018, Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Thursday, speaking at the annual Intellectual Property Awards by industry body CII.
Earlier this month, Sitharaman had informed the Parliament that as of March 1, 2017, as many as 2,47,824 patent applications and 7,53,471 trademark applications were pending at various stages of examination.
The government had instituted an IPR policy back in
