The Hindu Business Line : US plans to issue patents on ‘first-to-file’ basis

Chennai, Feb. 27 The US plans to bring in a major change in issuing patents for inventions. It plans to change the patent system to ‘first-to-file’ from the present ‘first-to-invent.’ In other words, if the Patent Reform Bill is passed by the US Congress, patent will be given to a person/company that first files for the invention and not for the inventor.

Hon. Randall R. Rader, Circuit Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, said the US is the only country that gives patent for the inventor, while the rest of the world gives to a person/company that files for the invention. “We want to follow the world to bring in uniformity in patent issuance,” he told newspersons.

The Patent Reform Bill will be taken up by the US Senate in a couple of months, and later by the Congress for voting. If the Bill is passed, it will be the first comprehensive patent law reform by the Congress since the Patent Act of 1952. The amendments will improve the ‘quality of patent’ and reduce the time to issue patents, he said.

Mr Herbert C. Wamsley, Executive Director, Intellectual Property Owners Association, US, said some of the issues being debated in the Patent Reform Bill were the timeframe to be given for anybody opposing an invention and the calculation of damages on infringement.

Quoting a study done two years ago by the US Federal Reserve Bank, Mr Wamsley said the total value of intellectual property rights (IPR) in the US was estimated at $5 trillion.

Indian patents

Patents filed in the US from India was minimal at present, but will go up in future with lots of inventions happening in areas such as information technology and pharma, he said.

Quoting Government officials, Mr Wamsley said the Indian IP sector is becoming more vibrant with the number of patent applications tripling in the last five years. Last year alone around 28,000 patents were filed. At present, there are around 150 patent examiners, and there is a plan to appoint an additional 600 examiners in the near future, he said.

Global seminar on IPR

Hon. Judge Rader and Mr Wamsley are part of a large delegation from the US, Japan and Germany visiting Chennai to participate in the two-day conference on IPR starting tomorrow. The event will highlight the best practices in IP protection and enforcement and deliberate on key policy level interventions that would make the IP sector in India more vibrant.

The conference is organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry in collaboration with the George Washington University Law School.

The event will have speakers like Mr Mr Brian J. Campbell, Director, Original Software Initiative, Microsoft; Judge Toshiaki Limura, Intellectual Property High Court of Japan; Mr B. Vijaya Raghavan, Senior Director IP Ranbaxy and Mr Heinz Goddar, Boehmert and Boehmert, German Patent Attorney and European Patent and Trade Mark Attorney.

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