Delhi High Court creates new IP division
The Delhi High Court has created a specialised IP division that will help replace a defunct appellate board, criticised for its ineffectiveness.
The court announced on Wednesday, July 7, that it had ordered the creation of an IP Division (IPD) which will deal with all IP-related cases. It will be authorised to deal with matters including revocation applications, cancellation applications, as well as appeals from IP authorities such as the Registrar of Trademarks and Controller of Patents.
All matters previously assigned to the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB), since taken on by the country’s High Courts, will come under the remit of the new division. The IPAB was abolished in April. There had been a series of revelations that the IPAB’s operations had come to a total halt.
The Delhi High Court had taken a leading role in interrogating the goings-on at the IPAB, with Judge Prathiba Singh demanding answers from the government about the level of resources afforded to the board.
At the time of the judge’s intervention in October 2019, the IPAB had few officials in post who were authorised to hear appeals and process cases. Most notably, the board had failed to hear a single case related to copyright since its establishment in 2003.
Calls grew for the IPAB to be abolished altogether, with one petition describing it as “non-functional and poorly designed”. Freedom of information requests revealed that Indian officials were contemplating transferring jurisdiction over IP appeals back to the courts.
“Thus ultimately most patent matters are litigated in the high courts only and some cases even land up in the Supreme Court... Thus, for avoiding overlapping litigations, shifting appellate functions back to the high courts appear justified,” wrote Shri Gupta, controller general of patents, designs and trademarks, last year.
A statement from Indian law firm Remfry & Sagar welcomed the move and urged other High Courts to follow suit: “This development is a positive step towards efficient adjudication of contentious IP matters.
“It follows the recommendations of a special Delhi High Court Committee set up to decide the best way forward for dealing with the large quantum of IP cases and effectively allays concerns regarding lengthier court procedures and delays in adjudication by courts already beset with backlogs that had arisen in the wake of the IPAB’s abolition.”
The statement added: “The Delhi High Court has taken the lead in setting up a mechanism to ensure efficient disposal of IP matters and one hopes that the high courts at Bombay, Calcutta, Chennai and Ahmedabad will follow suit soon.”
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