On September 12th, 2017, the Intellectual property office conducted a meeting with stakeholders. This meeting was primarily held to seek suggestions / feedback in connection with mobile app of IPO India Website, SMS alerts and discussing of the ambiguities in the email systems and also activities in relation to video conferencing facilities to enable the applicant to use the facility from patent office.
The main points discussed during the presentation were as follows:
- Mobile app of the IPO which is said to be launched in October, 2017 proposes to offer all the information relating to Patents, Trade Mark, Designs, copyright and geographical indications will be accessible through mobile app of the Indian Patent Office.
- SMS services wherein applicant get alerts with regard to critical events like request for examination, issuance of examination reports; intimation of disposals (eg. grant, abandon, refusal, decisions); intimation of cause list; filing of oppositions and renewal fee
- Issues related to E-mail Service, wherein major reasons of non-receipt of emails discussed such as data entry errors, sender mail server failure, email id/ account no more exists, blocking by antivirus etc.
- Video Conference Facility, which is intended for hearings; Applicants/Authorized Agents can conduct hearing with respective Controller at any far IPO location from the jurisdiction (location) of application; email regarding the hearings is sent to applicant/agent; VC facility to be extended up to the premises of applicant/authorized agent;
- Email ID udpation, which can be done via e-filing module; via bulk email updation of all applications.
Further, the following are the misc. points, were also discussed in the meeting:
- Date of recordal issue in the e-register;
- Non-receipt of FERs from the Patent Office due to wrong email ids;
- Proposal to publish the list of issued FERs in IPO website;
- Non-issuance of foreign filing license from the Patent Office;
The initiatives of IPO through such kind of development have given a new hope to the Intellectual Property Rights in India. The major development bought by the IPO whether being structural development in the form of technological advancement or Policy Reforms in the form of updating IP legislations have started showing recommendable results.
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