The persistent delays in registering Trademarks and Patents for innovations have led to a heavy backlog, an audit inquiry into the Intellectual Property Fund had pointed out.
The National Audit Office, in its financial audit of the Fund for the year 2018, underlined that Patent issuance activities and trademark registration activities need to be updated, and arrangements should be made to expedite those activities.
“The number of Patents registered during the year under review was 212 and those were the applications received from 2006 to 2017. Accordingly, a period from 1 year to 12 years had elapsed for the registration of these patents,” the audit observation stated, and the Fund’s Management had accepted the above observation.
“The license of a patent must be renewed annually. However, although the total number of patents registered was 4,619 by January 2018, the renewals made in the year 2018 were only 460 files (10 percent). The number of applications in progress in various stages of the registration process by the end of the year under review was 4,598,” the report noted.
“The number of Trademarks registered during the year under review was 5,192 and among them were 625 applications from 1992 to 2007. A Trademark is valid for a period of 10 years and the applications received prior to the year 2008 that were included in the registered trademarks during the year under review had expired the validity period by the time they were registered,” the report revealed.
The Fund’s Management had commented that the lack of adequate staff was one reason for the delay as the registration of a trademark is a complex process.
“Applications received during the year under review had been delayed due to giving priority to applications received in previous years. The number of applications that have not started the registration process at the beginning of the year under review was 1,752 and that number had grown up to 6,446 by the end of the year. Further, this number had increased to 9,690 by August 22, 2019,” the report observed.
The audit inquiry had found out that the number of registered trademarks for the year 2018 was 5,192 and this number was 10,622 in the preceding year. This was a decrease by 5,430 (51 percent). The Management had commented that the delay was owing to the limited number of officers.
According to the National Intellectual Property Office, patents protect inventions and ensure the inventors the benefits resulting from the inventions.
A “Trademark” is a visible sign that distinguishes the goods or services of different enterprises. The registration of the mark gives its owner exclusive right to use, assign and license the mark. Owner of the mark can restrain others from using his mark or a mark deceptively resembling his mark. Owner is even entitled to claim damages for violating his trade mark rights.