A report on - Where is Pakistan in the Patent World

Setting the Context:

For some of us who decided to read this report (esp my countrymen) this may shock you

“Yes, Pakistan has patent office and it promises to protect patents and other IP in the country!”.

Being a patent knowledge explorer, I came across to a link on WIPO academy on Global Network on Intellectual Property (IP) Academies which has been launched in order to support the work and sharing of resources, including training programs, of the Global Network of IP Academies and to provide an effective forum for exchanging of views and experiences among the members of the network. India does not seem to be part of this program.

On this page I learned that Pakistan has its own patent law system and does promise innovators to protect their patents in the country.

Scope & Safe statements:

This report is exploratory in nature and does not represent my employer’s opinion. The analysis presented in this article is based on data provided by Pakistan IPO website. I do not guarantee the accuracy of data & analysis presented here. Please free to post your comments and suggestions. I hope you will enjoy this report.

Genesis of Patents in Pakistan

Patent Act in Pakistan evolved from the original (Indian) Patents and Designs Act, 1911 and was amended as Patents Ordinance 2002 & Designs Ordinance, 2000. Intellectual Property Organization is under a Cabinet Division of Pakistani Government. However, I am not sure which ministry owns the responsibility of enforcement and protecting the rights conferred by the state. The website of the Patent office seems to be well organized and easy to navigate.

The basic premise of patentability is standard and is same as Indian law i.e. The invention should be new, involves an inventive step, capable of industrial application, and should not be contrary to law or morality. However, PTO is not much concerned about industrial application. Software is not patentable in Pakistan.

The prosecution procedure also seems to be standard viz. filing the “application”, examination and acceptance of application by the patent office, overcoming opposition, grant of patent, and sealing the patent.

Patent Statistics:

Pakistan patent office website provides data of patents granted from year 2005 till February 2010. They have used varying format for providing the data. This section is a “bird’s eye view” of granted patents in Pakistan.

Patent Grants from Year 2005 to February 2010 in Pakistan

There are around 1064 patent grants in the past five years. The patent grant in Pakistan has witnessed a steep decline. There may be multiple reasons for this. It may be due to backlog of black/mail box application relating to chemical products intended for use in agriculture and medicines. The application will be kept dormant until 31^st December 2004. Also, the political instability of the state seems to have affected the patents in the country very hard.

The data provided by the PTO is not consistent and have limited information. Filing date was provided for only 424 patents. Based on this data the average grant period is around 4 years. However, some pharmaceutical patents took more than 10 years in grant process.

My further analysis point was the “brave J” applicants who are filings  patents in the state. I have noticed an obvious trend of Pharmaceutical and Chemical companies monopolizing the patent filings in underdeveloped economies. Information & Communication Technology (ICT) companies choose to stay away as Pakistan has pretty much open borders with China (politically)!

Following figure segments applicants in broad industry areas.

Patent Grants by Industry

There were three Indian companies and one individual inventor who filed patents in Pakistan. These are:

CSIR India, Godfrey Philips India Ltd,India, Cipla,Ltd,and Dr.Adhijit De

There has been a very small portion of the total filings filed by Local companies and inventors. Local sports equipment manufacturer showed trust on the national patent office and filed patents seeking protection on football, cricket bat and balls etc.

Top Applicants in each category are:

A compiled patent data could be downloaded from this link.

During the quick scanning of the data, I have seen some interesting patents. Some of them are:

• A patent on credit card rewards system filed by Citi Financial Corporation.
• Recording and /or playback device comprising means for writing and /or reading information blocks in an information tract filed jointly by Philips Electronics & Sony Corporation
• A simulated smoking article filed by British American Tobacco (Investments) Ltd,Uk
• Genes and polypeptides relating to human colon cancers filed by Oncotherapy Science
• A mousetrap for trapping and /or killing mice filed by Reckitt Benckiser Healthcare
• Creation method for characters/Words and the information and communication service method thereby filed by Neopad Inc.Korea.
• Solid Fuel Stove filed by and ex. Pakistani army man Lt. Col. (R) Mahmud Shah
• A cricket pitch filed by Lourens Steyn Australia

Conclusion:
As WIPO member Pakistan seems to be working towards the protection of IP in the country. The PTO did a fairly good job in putting up a website. However, due to Pakistan’s current Socio political environment, there has been a steep decline in the patent filings and grant in the country.

Current political environment force me to think that the government of Pakistan (don’t know who!) should be protecting the innovators first than the innovation in the company. Pakistani economy and innovation seems to be surviving only due to the foreign government and companies.

I apologize for any of my comment which may have hurt the sentiments of anyone.