“Interesting Patents, Powerbank Rental Kiosk System, Intelligent Shopping Cart with Personalized Recommender System, A Sign Language Translator Glove, Patent Agent Examination registrations now open, Commerce and Industry submits patent statistics to Rajya Sabha, Fractus versus Oppo, IBM demands $167 million from Groupon over alleged patent infringement, China defends itself against allegations of IPR infringement and other Weekly Patent News,” presented by the Patent attorneys and experts of BananaIP Counsels, India’s leading Patent Firm.
Patent Quote of the Week
“Inventors change the world more than the generals and statesmen.” – Paul Nizan, French author
Indian Patent Statistics
A total of 802 patent applications have been published in the 29th issue of the patent journal. Out of the 802 applications, 58 applications account for early publications while 744 applications account for ordinary publications or publications occurring after the 18 month period. A total of 196 applications have been granted this week thereby marking a decrease of about 16.6% in grants compared to the previous week.
Early Publications
| City | Previous Week | This Week | Percentage of change |
| Delhi | 19 | 3 | 84.21% decrease |
| Mumbai | 9 | 35 | 288.89% increase |
| Chennai | 23 | 18 | 21.74% decrease |
| Kolkata | 18 | 2 | 88.89% decrease |
| Total | 69 | 58 | 15.94% decrease |
Ordinary Publications
| City | Previous Week | This Week | Percentage of change |
| Delhi | 393 | 275 | 30.03% decrease |
| Mumbai | 91 | 79 | 13.19% decrease |
| Chennai | 195 | 292 | 49.74% increase |
| Kolkata | 78 | 98 | 25.64% increase |
| Total | 757 | 744 | 1.72% decrease |
TOTAL PUBLICATIONS (Previous Week): 826
TOTAL PUBLICATIONS (This Week): 802
Percentage difference: 2.91% decrease
First Examination Report (FER) Statistics
A total of 1472 FER’s have been issued last week. Applicants and their agents can check if any of their patent applications have been examined by referring the journal available here.
| City | No. of FER Issued |
| Delhi | 548 |
| Mumbai | 196 |
| Chennai | 488 |
| Kolkata | 240 |
| Total | 1472 |
PUBLICATIONS UNDER GRANT
| City | Previous Week | This Week | Percentage of change |
| Delhi | 77 | 61 | 20.78% decrease |
| Mumbai | 32 | 32 | No change |
| Chennai | 71 | 59 | 16.9% decrease |
| Kolkata | 55 | 44 | 20% decrease |
| Total | 235 | 196 | 16.6% decrease |
Number of Applications published based on applicant city
Of the total 802 patent applications published in the journal last week, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Kolkata have contributed a total of 77 applications. The total applications from each of the previously mentioned cities are as follows – 18 applications from Bangalore, 17 applications from Chennai, 16 applications from Delhi, 14 applications from Mumbai and 12 applications from Hyderabad.
| List of Cities | 1st January 2018 – 20th July 2018 | 14th July 2018 – 20th July 2018 |
| Delhi | 653 | 16 |
| Mumbai | 475 | 14 |
| Bangalore | 554 | 18 |
| Chennai | 338 | 17 |
| Hyderabad | 275 | 12 |
| Kolkata | 124 | 0 |
Total number of applications published by the Indian Patent Office from the 1st of January 2018 till date: 21925
- Early publications: 2003
- Ordinary Publications: 19922
Total number of patents granted by the Indian Patent Office from the 1st of January 2018 till date: 7850
- Delhi – 2952
- Mumbai – 929
- Chennai – 2413
- Kolkata – 1556
Indian Industrial Designs Statistics
The designs office has registered a total of 107 designs this week. The total designs registered from the 1st of January 2018 till date now adds to a total of 5149 applications.
Total designs registered in the previous Week: 120
Total designs registered this Week: 107
Percentage Difference: 10.83% decrease
Total designs registered from the 1st of January 2018 till date: 5149
Interesting Patents
Patent Application 1
Title: POWERBANK RENTAL KIOSK SYSTEM
Applicant: Mehul Pravinkant Shukla
Application No.: 201823012383
Abstract: The present invention relates to power bank rental kiosk system is provided. The system allows for power bank to be rented or purchased for mobile devices that may require a battery recharge. In one embodiment, the system may allow a customer to rent the battery for a selected time period and charge their portable electronic device. (The abstract text has been taken as is and has not been corrected for errors)
Patent Application 2
Title: INTELLIGENT SHOPPING CART WITH PERSONALIZED RECOMMENDER SYSTEM
Applicant: Dr. G. Sunitha et al.
Application No.: 201841026162
Abstract: The present invention relates to systems that assist in providing better shopping experience and convenience to users having handheld smart devices which may be either a smart mobile phone or a tablet computer. This invention uses the RFID technology to develop an Intelligent Shopping Cart with Personalized Recommender System. The Intelligent shopping cart along with the handheld smart device, smart device application and a server/cloud facilitates shopper and retailer with smart shopping, online billing and payment, unassisted self-checkout along with the personalized recommender system and in-store navigation system. The handheld smart device may communicate with the server/cloud through wireless communication. The smart device application may be used by the shopper for creating personal accounts, maintaining e-wallets, prior preparation of shopping lists, product search and in-store navigation, personalized product recommendations and online billing and payment. The personalized recommender system can be used by shoppers to get active reminders, information on the selected product, and to be informed of the competitive products, available discounts, and be supported with recipe-ingredients recommendation, personalized product recommendations. Additionally, this invention has the capability to interface the RFID technology with smart device application and server/cloud to provide anti-theft detection system. (The abstract text has been taken as is and has not been corrected for errors)
Patent Application 3
Title: A SIGN LANGUAGE TRANSLATOR GLOVE
Applicant: K. Palanikumar
Application No.: 201841026260
Abstract: This invention strives to provide open and free communication for the speech-impaired people with the common folk. The invention is designed to provide the mute community with a chance to convert their gestures into regular speech based communication with the vast public. The Gesture Glove makes use of the capability of flex and gyroscopic sensors to capture the gestures of the end user wearing the said glove system and have them mapped to their corresponding pre-stored patterns in the database and consequently convert them into voice signals. This technology can be used to comprehensively map the gestures of the mute person and provide them with the capability to communicate normally. The invention also makes the more complex gestures customizable, i.e. speech impaired people can map their own gestures to text which can then be converted to speech. The invention converts their hand gestures into voice which a normal person can understand with the help of Data Analytics and Machine Learning. This device consists of a wireless glove, consisting of flex sensors and gyroscope. These sensors sense the movement of hand and fingers. This system consists of a mini high computing device, which converts these movements of hand into real time speech output for corresponding gesture. The text and voice output are configured to be output in English language. So, this device provides efficient way of communication for both deaf-dumb and normal people. (The abstract text has been taken as is and has not been corrected for errors)
Indian Patent Updates
Patent Agent Examination registrations now open
Registrations for the 2018 Patent Agent Examination are now open. Interested applicants can register themselves on the official website of the Indian Patent Office or by clicking here. The tentative date of the examinations is October 28, 2018. We will keep you posted on any new developments that occur in this regard.
Commerce and Industry submits patent statistics to Rajya Sabha
Minister of State for Commerce and Industry C R Chaudhary submitted a written reply to the Rajya Sabha informing the house that the Indian Patent Office had granted as many as 13,045 patents in 2017-18, compared to 9,847 in the previous fiscal. The Minister has also submitted that the government has taken several steps to simplify the procedure for processing of patent applications and make it user-friendly. 84 new posts of examiners and 95 posts of controllers have apparently been sanctioned to address the issue of lack of technical manpower for examination and quicker disposal of patent applications.
Patent /Design Infringements, Disputes, Licensing and Settlements.
Fractus versus Oppo
Fractus, a Barcelona-based research and development company along with its UK licensing partner Vectis IP has filed a lawsuit against Oppo for alleged infringement of the R&D Company’s patents on antenna technology for wireless devices with a Beijing Court in China. Fractus, founded in 1999, is reputed as a pioneer of geometry-based antenna technology. The robustness of the technologies covered by Fractus’ antenna patents as well as their importance to connected portable devices has already been validated by courts in Europe and the USA in other such similar suits.
IBM demands $167 million from Groupon over alleged patent infringement
International Business Machines Corp (IBM) has asked a U.S. jury to award it $167 million in a patent infringement lawsuit against e-commerce marketplace operator Groupon Inc. IBM in its suit has alleged that Groupon has infringed patents involving e-commerce technology that had already been licensed to Amazon, Facebook and Google for between $20 million and $50 million per company. Groupon’s lawyers have however reportedly argued that IBM has exceeded the coverage of its patents and is claiming ownership of fundamentals of the internet.
International Patent Updates
China defends itself against allegations of IPR infringement
The Chinese Foreign Ministry came out in defense earlier last week against allegations from the US that China was infringing on IPR in an unprecedented manner. The spokesperson of Chinese Foreign Ministry rebuked the allegations of the US by pointing out that China was ranked second in the world in the number of innovative enterprises and that the number of patent applications filed by China through the Patent Cooperation Treaty ranked second in the world following the US. The spokesperson also added “Innovation and intellectual property rights should serve the well-being of mankind and progress of the world, rather than being a tool for the US to secure its own interests and suppress other countries’ development,”
Author: BIP’s Patent Attorneys
Led by Senior Partners, Somashekar Ramakrishna, Nitin Nair and Vinita Radhakrishnan, BIP’s Patent Attorneys are among the leading patent practitioners in the country. They work with clients such as Mahindra and Mahindra, Samsung, HCL, Eureka Forbes, and Titan. They specialize in IT/Software, Electronics/Telecom, Mechanical, Automotive, and Bio/Pharma domains, and help clients with patent filing, prosecution, management and strategy in India, and across the world.
The weekly patent news initiative is a part of their pro bono work, and is aimed at spreading patent awareness. You are free to share the news with appropriate attribution and backlink to the source.
If you have any questions, you may write to BIP’s Patent Attorneys – contact@bananaip.com.
