Also a megaphone for patent trolls like Intellectual Ventures...

Summary: The lobbying against the interests of India (among other countries that reject patent maximalism) as seen in the trolls-funded IAM 'magazine'

IT IS widely known and globally recognised that software patents are not valid in India. India is actually quite strict about it, unlike the EPO and USPTO.

One item of news that we covered the other night was the Chamber of Corporates' (CoC) 'ratings' for propaganda purposes. They are trying to shame countries that don't do what US-based mega-corporations want them to do and IAM, not too shockingly, props up this propaganda in the piece "US corporates see mixed IP progress across Southeast Asian markets; TPP may make things worse". Here is how it starts before it moves on to the Chamber's so-called 'ratings':

IP Bridge CEO Shigeharu Yoshii told this blog in a recent interview that the improving IP infrastructure in the ASEAN countries has given his firm the confidence to pursue numerous IP-centric business opportunities in the region. In fact, the Japanese patent fund published an ‘Asia Strategy’ earlier this week whose first sentence was: “IP Bridge is casting its eyes towards ASEAN”. But the release of the US Chamber of Commerce’s latest IP index suggests that the views of large US corporates about IP developments in south-east Asia over the last year are decidedly mixed, while the Trans-Pacific Partnership's (TPP) possible abandonment, in the wake of President Trump's confirmation of the US's withdrawal, will not could endanger some of the bright spots.

[...]

If you look only at the Chamber's ratings for the patent environment, Singapore has remarkably edged ahead of the US due to continued questions about patentability in the latter.

Creative, which is based in Singapore, has become a creative patent troll; the legal chief (Anan Sivananthan) has just quit though. The company was trying to leverage a bunch of old patents because it's unable to sell anything and in the process it attacked Android OEMs. It won't be long before Creative's patents are all expired and the company can just file for bankruptcy; "Dolby Digital AC3 US patent has expired," Benjamin Henrion wrote the other day about another audio Luddite, saying that "Dolby threatened VLC devs http://is.gd/578wUP http://is.gd/B9jb0t http://is.gd/6mdgeK"

Is this the kind of future India would want to bring upon itself? Certainly not. India thrives in the area of software (many millions of IT workers) because it is safe to develop there, not despite lack of software patenting.

It has meanwhile emerged, based on another IAM "report", that the patent office in India makes available a fast lane for the rich (similar to what the EPO does). We were not aware of this and here are the details:

Over the years the Indian Patent Office (IPO) has accumulated a huge backlog of pending patent applications. At present, the IPO is examining patent applications filed between May 2012 and July 2012 – that is, it is at least four years behind. The impact of this delay is clearly reflected in the stagnation in patent filings over the past four to five years and the large number of pending patent applications which have been abandoned by applicants. Until 2016 there was no straightforward way of expediting the examination of patent applications in India, but the patent rules have now been amended to allow this.

Under the amended rules, a request for expedited examination can be filed along with payment of the official fee, which is:

Rs60,000 for large entities; Rs25,000 for small entities; and Rs8,000 for individuals and start-ups.

This lack of neutrality in processing of applications means more profit opportunities for the Office and it is utterly ridiculous. Is India copying the very worst aspect of neo-liberal policies in the West? When did this horrible option creep in and why? ⬆