DPIIT, in a notification dated 27th August 2024, appointed Subhash Chandra Karol, Director of the DPIIT, because the Head of the IT workplace of the CGPDTM. It just isn’t clear what has triggered this variation. However, the notification comes shut on the heels of a writ petition filed by the AIPOWA in the Delhi High Court (here), which alleges “arbitrary reallocation, withdrawal, and abandonment of patent applications and review petitions” by the Information Technology (IT) Division of the CGPDTM. The writ highlights situations the place issues had been withdrawn and reallocated by the IT Division citing effectivity points, with no reasoned order of the Controller beneath Section 73(4) of the Patents Act. Additionally, it’s alleged in the writ, that there are situations the place the IT Division would revive a refused utility even when no evaluate petition was filed, or reallocated pending and evaluate utility to different officers on the instructions of the CGPDTM. Whether the above developments are interconnected or not is troublesome to inform at this level.
As reported here by Indian Express, an nameless DPIIT official rejected the declare that Mr Karol’s appointment was prompted as a result of allegations raised in the writ petition. Rather, the official is reported to have mentioned, the appointment is aimed toward ‘upgrading and modernising’ the IT infrastructure of the Patent Office which had grow to be previous. In Filo Edtech Inc vs Union Of India, the CGPDTM had submitted that issues in the Patent Office are allotted by way of an automatic system with none human intervention. Nevertheless, any reallocation 73(4) requires reasoned order, which, imagine it or not, requires human intervention.
Be that as it might, it can’t be denied that the CGPDTM has been in the highlight for the previous few months and that too for all of the flawed causes. Readers of the weblog will keep in mind a latest post by Sabeeh, the place he identified that “close to two years of TM applications examinations” should be re-examined since they had been assigned to contracted workers fairly than trademark examiners. Praharsh had then written here on the CGPDTM notification, which laid out the mechanism for re-validation of all of the TM orders handed in the final couple of years.
In one other occasion, it was reported here, {that a} committee, arrange by the Union Commerce and Industry Ministry, had indicted Dr Unnat P Pandit for ‘administrative lapses.’ However, Dr Pandit, in this LinkedIn post, denied the allegations as “False facts without merit.” The Hindu BusinessLine later reported (here) that DPIIT had mentioned his “position will be examined and further action will be taken accordingly”. However, I couldn’t discover any official communication in this regard.
Moreover, this isn’t the primary time AIPOWA has raised severe points regarding the CGPDTM. Reportedly, the AIPOWA has filed one other writ petition in the DHC, this time difficult the appointment of Mr Unnat P. Pandit as the top of the CGPDTM, alleging lack of expertise and Annual Confidential experiences (Background here) which had been required beneath the DoPT letter for the publish. (the writ could be seen here) In the previous, the AIPOWA had challenged, earlier than Central Administrative Tribunal and DPIIT, the issuance of 259 show-cause notices by the CGPDTM to completely different officers of the Indian Patent Office. As Praharsh writes here, the Ministry of Commerce subsequently stepped in and withdrew the present trigger notices towards such officers.
Looking on the Larger Picture
There is a bigger context inside which the above developments must be positioned. For the previous 16-18 months, there have been repeated situations the place the Court has reprimanded Patent officers for writing incomprehensible judgements (here), intentionally concealing information (here) or lack of reasoning in orders handed by the Controller (here). Therefore, the latest situation of orders being handed by contractual workers can’t be seen as a one-off occasion. (In truth, even the answer of re-verifying – whereas effectively supposed – raises one other set of advanced questions as to what in the Act permits for this ‘re-verification’ course of – maybe a query for an additional publish) That the DPIIT has determined to take over the day-to-day administration of a specific division of the CGPDTM, which in and of itself is a separate division, signifies a the necessity for a deeper take a look at all of those questions.
Speaking of IT departments – at current, the difficulty of the Trademark Website malfunctioning or performing up from time to time additionally must be mentioned (I personally needed to take care of it two days in the past!). Although it’s unclear whether or not the duty of working the TM web site falls with the IT Division of the CGPDTM or a personal entity (which brings a bunch of different issues itself), it’s time for the DPIIT, which has taken over the division, to begin figuring this out as effectively.
In gentle of the above, giving further cost of the IT Division to the DPIIT’s head signifies that each one just isn’t effectively on the CGPDTM. If the information experiences are to be believed, an entire overhaul of the CGPDTM is required. Although one can argue that the above allegations are but to be proved and determined by the Courts, the above situation jogs my memory of the phrase- “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” One can solely hope that the CGPDTM douses this hearth as quickly as attainable.
If the readers come throughout every other data, please do share it in the feedback!
[A huge thank you to two anonymous readers for their input]