Government mulling giving patent registrations quickly: Prabhu

The Indian government will soon unveil a plan for issue of patent registrations in the shortest possible time towards further streamlining the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) regime in the country, Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu said on Tuesday.

Declaring that India was "fully committed" to the IPR regime, the minister said that it was in the country's interest as among the foremost knowledge economies to have a robust IPR system that is enforced effectively.

"We are working on bringing a plan by which patent registrations will be issued in the least possible time. The announcement will be made in the next few weeks," Pradhu said here while inaugurating the National Conference on Counterfeiting and Role of Enforcement Agencies.

"Enforceability of law is extremely important, it is a critical part of IPR because its violation is a completely different kind of crime..it is a moral, as well as intellectual crime.

"India is fully committed not only to the IPR regime, which has been accomplished, but also to enforcing it and successful prosecution of cases."

Noting that Indian enforcement were more familiar with other kinds of crimes and economic offences like bank frauds, Prabhu said the Commerce Ministry would help the police by creating modules online for undertaking systematic investigation of IPR infringements.

"We will provide you with modules on how to enforce the law. We should call a meeting of DG Police and other law enforcement officials and prepare a module a module for implementation that could be put online," he said.

He said a robust IPR regime is necessary to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) that is crucial for the country's development.

"Investment to achieve 9-10 per cent growth will not happen without FDI, which comes with technology and that means a license. So, there is this IPR linkage to FDI which has to be protected."