The IP Administration component focuses, inter alia, on the registration services offered by the CGPDTM concerning trade marks and industrial designs and aims at identifying areas in which a strategic approach to trade mark and industrial design administration could be of use for the CGPDTM Office.
The demand for the registration of trade marks and industrial designs has been growing consistently over the last decade in India. This has put some natural strain on the capacity of the IP national institutions to cope with this growing demand. In this sense, the project contributed to support the CGPDTM within the framework of the National IPR Policy of India.
One of the main objectives of any IP Office is to provide high quality, efficient and cost-effective systems to protect IPRs and to be stakeholder-centric, continuously improving the quality and timeliness of the services that they provide.
The project supported this goal through the development and/or transferred of appropriate IP management tools and the improvement of the capacity of human resources at the CGPDTM. In this respect, the CGPDTM and EUIPO have identified and conducted a number of initiatives aimed, inter alia, at reducing the average turnaround time for the registration of trade marks and industrial designs. Such initiatives involved, for instance, exchanging and developing best practice, modernising and streamlining registration procedures, simplifying workflows, adopting quality standards, integrating relevant IP tools, updating CGPDTM´s manuals/guidelines for trade mark and design examination and further upgrading the skills of their trade mark and design examiners.
One particular area where the project provided effective support was trade mark classification. The CGPDTM, along with all prominent IP Offices around the world are following a clear trend towards establishing classification databases to assist in the classification of goods and services for the purposes of the registration of marks according to the International Classification established by the Nice Agreement. Being able, for instance, to integrate e-filing workflows with such a classification tool and, at the same time, enabling an examiner to consult pre-approved terms is, inter alia, a tangible result from the project.
Based on cooperation with the CGPDTM and the DIPP, six areas of action were identified.
These six areas supported India´s National IPR Policy, namely: the following objectives therein included; Objective number 4 (Administration and Management), Objective number 2 (Generation of IPRs), Objective number 3 (Legal and Legislative Framework) and Objective number 7 (Human Capital Development)
In summary, under this component the IPC-EUI Project provided most useful and effective support to the CGPDTM in its efforts to develop and implement a strategic approach to trade mark and industrial design administration.