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A Law Student’s Account of Attending the Virtual Open Houses of the CGPDTM: Part II

Republished By Plato
Republished By Plato

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[This post is authored by SpicyIP intern Anshuman Kar. Anshuman is a third year law student at National Law University, Odisha. He shares a keen interest in Patent related issues and wishes to discover more in the field of IP.]

In part I of the two part post, I discussed the CGPDTM’s Open House session on Patents and Trademarks. In part II of the post, I’ll highlight the Open House Session of June 13, 2023 on trademarks and will share my key takeaways.

Trademarks : Session on Tuesday – June 13 2023

The session on trademarks was a lengthier one as compared to the earlier two sessions, continuing on from 4:30PM to 6PM, owing to the number of issues raised. These ranged from issues related to issuance of certificates, to settlements, to errors in payments. All in all, the number of issues raised and participants who had joined could not all be acknowledged in one sitting, even with an extension in the prescribed time for the Open House.

The Panel

To address this session on 13th, the panel comprised of Prof.(Dr) Unnat P. Pandit(Controller General of Patents, Designs & Trade Marks), Shri. Vikas Punia(Senior Examiner of Trade Marks and GI Head- Trademarks Registry, Delhi), Mrs. Clitty Shaju(Deputy Registrar of Trademarks and GI Head-Trademarks Registry, Mumbai), Smt. B. Kayalvizhi(Deputy Registrar of Trade Marks & GI Head- Trademarks Registry, Chennai), Smt. Dipmala P. Mathapati(Assistant Registrar of Trade Marks and G.I. Head- Trademarks registry, Ahmedabad).

Issues Raised

Though not all queries could be heard, this session did see a good number of issues raised, with close to 50 practitioners having joined to get their queries addressed, out of which I shall highlight a few.

  • Issues on glitches in the TM registry’s website- This was by far the most prominently raised issue across all three sessions I had sat in on. There was a downpour of complaints concerning glitches in the registry’s website. These included displaying the status of the application as “opposed” incorrectly, incorrectly displaying the payment status as “pending” despite the payment of the fees, incorrectly displaying that the FER has been issued to the applicant, displaying that the application has been accepted and registered but no certificate was issued. The Controller General asked the concerned participants to mail the issues and directed the officers to look into the matter at the earliest. (Interestingly, at the time of writing this, it appears that there are further new issues with the website – with the working hours being 6pm to 6am!)
  • Delays:  Participants also raised issues regarding delay in considering change in proprietorship, delaying hearings, one participant said that they were awaiting final order which was pending owing to the transfer of the concerned officer.  On these issues apart from  assuring the participants that their respective issues will be resolved, the Controller General stated a reform was being introduced in the office regarding hiring of contractual staff, which would expedite the process of acknowledging IP matters at a faster pace. It was stated that these contractual staff were in training as of now, but would be inducted into the office soon. Another interesting update was provided by the Controller General while addressing an issue relating to discrepancies in hearings. The CG declared that a meeting would be conducted with the Hearing Officers of the registry, following which groups would be formed from amongst the officials of the registry and matters would be assigned to each group, year-wise. This would, according to him, help expedite the process of disposal of matters.
  • Updating the mode of payment: Further, the CG declared that a new system for payments was being introduced which would enable the applicants to deposit their fees via BHIM and UPI too, without any additional surcharge.

Reflecting on the Session:

While no immediate resolution was noted in this session, the Controller General appeared to have some long-term goals which would eradicate a lot of issues which were arising out of matter which had been for long, probably looked over. With the Controller General himself being present and addressing issues, an increased number of addressed issues were noted. Moreover, the CG’s presence was appreciated by a number of applicants.

A common trend here can be observed regarding the nature of issues, almost all of them related to technical glitches in the website of the registry. While the CG had provided that such glitches would be resolved soon, only upon upgradation of the website can we truly say that a chunk of issues have been resolved.

General Observations and Takeaways

With the conventional approach to a slow, and process-based bureaucratic system in mind, I had started attending these sessions with little to no hope of observing any positive takeaway through the open house sessions, however I was wrong. I would certainly like to appreciate the enthusiasm with which the office of the CGPDTM tries to address the issues raised, which might be the reason why one-to-one interactions between practitioners and officials could significantly be observed as increasing, and in a comfortable, seamless, and a slightly informal manner. Such dialogue would certainly encourage more applicants to approach these open house sessions to ger their issues resolved, thereby helping the office re-ignite and address issues that might have been lost in time. Moreover, the officials also took the pain of sitting beyond the prescribed time to address the issues raised by the practitioners. This in my opinion, and I’m sure in that of others too, is an absolutely unusual and fairly new thing that I observed, specially coming from a government office

If my three sittings are indicative, the  exercise of setting up the open house sessions can be described as a fairly positive step wherein dialogue has been initiated between practitioners and the officials handling IP issues across the country. With a plethora of new varieties of disputes coming up with regard to matters related to Intellectual Property, such open house sessions could be seen as a boon which could help with addressal of issues in a more efficient manner, since they would be acknowledged faster. This would reduce the burden of pendency of proceedings related to IP matters in the offices of the controllers.

Alongside acknowledgement of issues, it can open a new portal of ensuring transparency in the intellectual property forum, and could also act as a forum for redressal of queries for civilians regarding patent related issues. This statement arises out of my interaction with the enthusiastic officials who were eager to converse with me and asked for my remarks regarding the sessions when I stated that I was a student who attended the session as an observer.

At the same time, a question that struck my mind was regarding enforceability of the e-mails that would be filed by the participants post the directions of the panel. Several of the acknowledgements were followed up by asking the attendee to send in an email. However, if an email was sufficient, the question arises as to why that attendee needed to come to the Open House in the first place? Regardless, for other issues, especially those addressed or clarified immediately, shed a little light on the prejudiced opinion I carried. Hence it can be opined that the open house sessions are a great step ahead in the arena of IP in India, as long as they also turn up with an outcome.

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