Intellectual Property Office expedites the issuance of patent and trade marks

Sri Lanka’s National Intellectual Property Office (NIPO) is working tirelessly with limited resources to clear the backlog of all pending applications for registration of patents and trademarks over the next 18 months.

The easing of the procedures for appraisal/ grant of intellectual property rights (IPRs), has resulted in a quicker disposal of applications and reduced the backlog substantially, NIPO Director General Geethanjali R. Ranawaka told the Business Times.

Considerable delays had occurred in the registration of a trademark such as a period from seven months to 10 years from the date of receipt of an

application for registration of a trademark, for its examination, a period from one year to three after payment of fees, inventors and new company heads complained.

Ms. Ranawake pointed out that the process of issuing trademarks (TMs) and patents has been expedited with the increase in qualified and skilled staff.

However she said that due to the previous complex process and a shortage of staff in the past, a long period is required to grant a patent and to register a trademark.

“We are not purposely delaying the granting of patents to inventors, but the process of issuing patents is time consuming because it has to be 100 per cent perfect,” she said.

The number of staff members has been increased to 79 from 44 during the period of 2012-2018 to expedite the process.

The NIPO has been able to clear around 33,000 untouched Trademark Applications with 10 officials working hard in the TM division.

The Intellectual Property Office was functioning with half of the approved cadre to clear the back log of applications; Ms. Ranawake said adding that she was the only staff officer attached to the office at that time in 2012.

“As of today we have only 7000 TM applications to be examined filed which have been filed during 2017, 2018 and 2019,” she added.

“Currently we have approval for the deployment of staff on a special project assignment basis to clear the backlog of 7000 applications and 10000 certificates as this cannot be cleared by available human resources during office hours,” Ms. Ranawake emphasised

In respect of patents NIPO has issued around 1000 patent certificates during the last four years.

However, another 1000 applications are pending to be finalized and most of them cannot be disposed due to the defective and insufficient documents filed by the patent applicants, she revealed.

“When we receive the corrected documents we can proceed with granting process”, she said.

Referring to the financial position of NIPO, she noted that revenue has been increasing rapidly starting from Rs.98 million in 2012 to Rs. 156 million in 2017 and Rs. 170.76 million in 2018.

This was a remarkable increase in economic terms of Intellectual Property activities as well as business and commerce, Ms Ranawake said.

Referring to the financial position of NIPO, she noted that revenue has been increasing rapidly starting from Rs.98 million in 2012 to Rs.156 million in 2017 and Rs. 170.76 million in 2018.