“A patent granted for Snake collars, Foldable iPhone Patent, SIPP Stakeholders meeting on 7th December, USPTO hikes patent fees, MSF V Pfizer, Pneumonia vaccine patent, Roche V. Pfizer, Microsoft patent infringement, Patent opposition in India, Patent Tip of the Week and other Weekly Patent News,” presented by the Patent attorneys and experts of BananaIP Counsels, India’s leading Patent Firm.
Interesting Patent Fact of the Week
A collar and lead to enable snake owners to take their pet for walks was patented in the US in 2002. The invention was titled “Collar apparatus enabling secure handling of a snake by tether”.
Indian Patent Statistics
There has been a sharp decrease in the total number of patent applications that have been published this week by the Indian Patent Office. A total of mere 1094 patent applications have been published this week as opposed to 2058 applications in the previous week. Of the 1094 patent applications, 41 applications account for early publications while 1053 applications are ordinary publications or publications occurring after the 18 month period.
Early Publications
| City | Previous Week | This Week | Percentage of change |
| Delhi | 3 | 11 | 266.67% increase |
| Mumbai | 21 | 0 | 100% decrease |
| Chennai | 43 | 30 | 30.23% decrease |
| Kolkata | 5 | 0 | 100% decrease |
| Total | 72 | 41 | 43.06% decrease |
Ordinary Publications
| City | Previous Week | This Week | Percentage of change |
| Delhi | 778 | 501 | 35.6% decrease |
| Mumbai | 367 | 85 | 76.84% decrease |
| Chennai | 644 | 426 | 33.85% decrease |
| Kolkata | 269 | 41 | 84.76% decrease |
| Total | 2058 | 1053 | 48.83% decrease |
TOTAL PUBLICATIONS (Previous Week): 2130
TOTAL PUBLICATIONS (This Week): 1094
Percentage difference: 48.64% decrease
PUBLICATIONS UNDER GRANT
| City | Previous Week | This Week | Percentage of change |
| Delhi | 104 | 92 | 11.54% decrease |
| Mumbai | 31 | 25 | 19.35% decrease |
| Chennai | 80 | 62 | 22.5% decrease |
| Kolkata | 32 | 33 | 3.13% increase |
| Total | 248 | 212 | 14.52% decrease |
Number of Applications published based on applicant city
Of the total 1094 patent applications published this week, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai, Delhi and Hyderabad have contributed a total of 130 applications. The total applications from each of the previously mentioned cities are as follows – 16 from Mumbai, 39 from Bangalore, 6 from Delhi, 38 from Chennai, 30 from Hyderabad and 1 from Kolkata.
| List of Cities | 1st January 2017 – till date | 18th November 2017 to 24th November 2017 |
| Mumbai | 1511 | 16 |
| Bangalore | 1310 | 39 |
| Delhi | 796 | 6 |
| Chennai | 876 | 38 |
| Hyderabad | 473 | 30 |
| Kolkata | 354 | 1 |
Total number of applications published by the Indian Patent Office from the 1st of January 2017 till 24th November 2017: 32568
- Early publications: 2752
- Ordinary Publications: 29816
Total number of patents granted by the Indian Patent Office from the 1st of January 2017 till 24th November 2017: 11643
- Delhi – 4799
- Mumbai – 1203
- Chennai – 3909
- Kolkata – 2222
First Examination Report (FER) Statistics
A total of 1173 FER’s have been issued this 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 | 389 |
| Mumbai | 198 |
| Chennai | 413 |
| Kolkata | 173 |
| Total | 1173 |
Indian Industrial Designs Statistics
The designs office at Kolkata has registered a total of 206 designs this week; a decrease of about 3.74% from to the total number of designs registered in the previous week. The total designs registered from the 1st of January 2017 till date now adds to 8728 applications.
Total designs registered in the previous Week: 214
Total designs registered this Week: 206
Percentage Difference: 3.74% decrease
Total designs registered from the 1st of January 2017 till date: 8728
Interesting Patents
Apple files patent application for foldable iPhones
The USPTO recently published a patent application from Apple that relates to a possible foldable iPhone model. The patent application 15/272,597 is titled ‘Electronic Devices With Flexible Displays’ and discloses an electronic device in general having a flexible portion that allows the device to be folded. The abstract of the patent application is as follows:
“An electronic device may have a flexible portion that allows the device to be folded. The device may have a flexible display. The flexible display may have a flexible display layer, a cover layer, a touch sensor interposed between the flexible display layer and the cover layer, a support layer, and a polarizer layer. The polarizer layer may be interposed between the touch sensor and the flexible display or between the touch sensor and the cover layer. The touch sensor may include optically clear adhesive that is flexible and facilitates bending of the display. The optically clear adhesive may include additives such as water vapor penetration reducing additive, anticorrosion additive, ultraviolet-light blocking additive, and index-of-refraction adjustment additive. The support layer may be formed from shape memory alloy or amorphous metal and may have openings to facilitate bending.”
Patent Office Updates
SIPP Meeting with IP stakeholders to be held on the 7th December 2017
As part of the effort in making consistent efforts towards streamlining the functioning of the IPO, the Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs & Trademarks is organizing a meeting of all the stakeholders, including patent and trademark agents on the 7th of December 2017 between 4 PM and 5 PM at Udyog Bhawan, New Delhi. Interested stakeholders may send their confirmations to Dr. W. M. Dhumane at wm.dhumane@nic.in and Shri Sukhdeep Singh at Sukhdeep.ipo@nic.in on or before 4th December 2017. Feedbacks and suggestions (in two pages maximum) may also be submitted before the due date.
The official notification is available here.
Patent disputes, infringement and settlements
MSF to challenge Pfizer’s Indian patent pneumonia vaccine
MSF India also known as Doctors Without Borders and Médecins Sans Frontières has announced that it would challenge the patent granted to Pfizer for its pneumonia vaccine Prevnar 13 (PCV13) in the High Court of Delhi. The aid group is asking the Indian court to overturn the August ruling on Prevnar 13 (PCV13), saying the patent doesn’t meet the standards of India’s Patent Act.
Pfizer which currently has exclusive rights to sell Prevnar 13 in India until 2026, launched the drug in India in 2010 and is one of only two pneumonia vaccines produced in the world. Pfizer is facing challenges to its similar patent in Korea and the EU.
Microsoft accused of patent infringement by HoloLens
HoloTouch, a Connecticut based company has accused tech giant Microsoft of willful infringement of two of the company’s patents on holographic imaging technology. HoloTouch has further claimed that Microsoft had prior knowledge of the company’s patents and yet tried to ignore it. HoloTouch has asserted that it had approached Microsoft with the offer of a partnership way back in 2006 but it received no response.
Roche Sues Pfizer in US
Roche Holding AG has filed a patent infringement suit against rival pharma major – Pfizer in the federal court in Wilmington, Delaware in an attempt to stop Pfizer Inc. from selling a copy of Roche’s patented breast-cancer drug – Herceptin in the US. Roche has alleged that Pfizer’s proposed biosimilar would infringe 40 of Roche’s patents which would cause massive losses to the company.
International Patent Updates
USPTO to increase patent fees from January 16, 2018
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has revised its fee schedule through a final rule notified in the Federal Register. The office has justified the fee increase by citing the need to “support the USPTO’s progress toward its strategic goals like pendency and backlog reduction, patent quality enhancements, technology modernization, staffing optimization, and financial sustainability”. While most fees have been hiked by over and around 20%, fess for some instances such as post-grant and inter partes review proceedings have been increased dramatically.
BananaIP’s Patent Tip of the Week
Filing an opposition to a patent application or a patent in India
There are two kinds of patent oppositions available to third parties in India, namely pre-grant opposition by representation and post grant opposition. Pre-grant Opposition can be filed by any person after publication of the application in the Indian Patent Journal till the grant of the patent under any of the grounds provided under section 25(1) of the patents act. Similarly, Post-grant Opposition can be filed by any interested person within 12 months from the date of publication of the grant of patent in the Indian Patent Journal on any of the grounds provided under section 25(2) of the Act.
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.
