Govt wants patent exam time lowered to 18 months

Aiming to drastically reduce the time taken for first examination of patent applications to 18 months from about 5-7 years, the government has initiated various steps, including hiring of more examiners. The reduction in examination time will happen gradually and they are fixing monthly, quarterly, half-yearly and annual benchmarks to achieve this ambitious target, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) Secretary Ramesh Abhishek said on Monday. “Right now the examination time is 5 to 7 years... have a target to bring it down to 18 months.” he said at a Ficci function here.