Indian appeals board at ‘complete standstill’; judge demands answers
A senior Indian judge has demanded answers from the Indian government on the resources afforded to the country’s Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB), which she says has come to a “complete standstill”.
In July this year, judge JR Midha of the Delhi High Court ordered the IPAB to clear its backlog, which numbered 3,935 cases while key posts were left unfilled.
At the time, the IPAB had no technical members to hear cases relating to patents, trademarks, or copyright. In an effort to break the deadlock, the court authorised the chairman, judge Manomhan Singh, and the technical member for plant varieties to hear urgent cases.
The IPAB appeared to make some progress, as the pair began dealing with 1,430 cases in the wake of the court order.
But since then the IPAB’s ranks have dwindled even further with the departure of judge Singh, whose term expired on September 21.
A separate order by judge Midha last month warned that if judge Singh’s term as IPAB chair was not extended past this date, then the board would effectively “shut down”.
Last week, Delhi High Court judge Prathiba Singh requested information on the state of the IPAB from the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade.
In her order, issued October 23, the judge said that “the manner in which the IPAB has been functioning during the last 15 years shows that at every stage, there has been delay in appointments being made”.
“Adequate infrastructure and autonomy is also not granted to the IPAB in order to make its functioning efficient and smooth,” she added.
As a former lawyer and secretary of the Asian Patent Attorneys Association’s Indian section, Prathiba Singh has been critical of the level of resources allocated to the appeals board.
Legal commentator Prashant Reddy, writing for the SpicyIP blog, noted that Prathiba Singh had previously sued the Indian government over under-resourcing at the IPAB.
Now in her capacity as a judge, Judge Prathiba Singh is seeking clarification from the government on the “financial autonomy” of the IPAB.
“The purpose of the IPAB is for speedy disposal of appeals and rectification applications,” she wrote.
“However, this purpose has been completely set at nought owing to the manner in which the IPAB has been functioning since the time it has been constituted.”
At the time of the July order, the IPAB had not heard a single case relating to copyright since it was established in 2003, while there has been no technical member for trademarks in place since December 2018.
Judge Prathiba Singh also sought an update on the status of appointments to both the technical member posts, as well as the search for a new chairman.
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