The Secretariat Report mentions that "the number of patents granted relative to the number of patent applications has increased." However, according to the annual report of CGPDTM, the number of examined patent applications has been decreasing since 2006/07 and fell to 6069 applications in 2009/10, so a considerable number of backlog cases must have accumulated. Please describe what measures CGPDTM has taken or will take in order to deal with the backlog.
Reply: It is generally true that "the number of patents granted relative to the number of patent applications has increased." However, the number of examined applications in a year may vary according to the availability of technical officers. Backlog of pending requests of examinations is about one lakh. In order to deal with the backlog, 248 additional examiners in various disciplines have already been selected on the basis of a competitive examination and these will be inducted during this year itself.
