E-mailing FERs for Design Registration would reduce time drastically: Expert

New Delhi, Sep 10 (KNN) E-mailing of First Examination Reports (FER) of the applications for registration of designs will reduce the time for granting the designs which used to take around two or three years, said Vedant Pujari, IPR Consultant with Federation of Indian Micro and Small & Medium Enterprises (FISME).

The Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trademarks said in a Public Notice, “It is for information to all the stakeholders that in order to facilitate faster processing of applications for registration of designs, First Examination Reports (FER) and subsequent office communications shall be communicated in the e-mail or digital address of the applicant / agent as mentioned in the address of service for respective design applications wherever available.”

Pujari said that it used to take around two to three years to be granted the designs but now the time will reduce as everything would be on mail. It has already started that a design application can be registered within above the year like eight months to a year.

He further said that the entire hardcopy culture in government offices will go away because everybody will use e-mails. So it is easier to track down the examination report or any kind of document that one is receiving.

“It is much easier to start taking action on it sooner. That certainly reduces the time taken,” he added.

Speaking on the aspects of technology, the consultant said that it will be in electronic format so storing the documents and sending to the client would be easy for service provider and client. Major benefit will be reduction in time consumption.

This provision of sending First Examination Reports to applicant/ agent through e-mail would commence from 5th September, 2016.

The Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trademarks has advised the applicants to provide their valid email id in the Address for Service in Application for registration of Design (Form-1) so as to facilitate quick transmission of registration certificates to them.

The process relating to generation & issuance of registration certificates for applications made for registration of trademarks has already been fully automated. (KNN Bureau)