Trademark Registry Files Latest Data on Oppositions Before the Delhi High Court

Data on the pendency and disposal of applications and oppositions are extremely crucial to understand the effectiveness of the Indian Patent Office and the Trademarks Registry. But accessing the latest data on the performance of these institutions has been a herculean task. Leaving aside the fate and quality of responses to RTI applications seeking this information (discussed extensively here), the Annual Reports of the Controller General’s office, presumably carrying all the necessary data, are uploaded on a yesteryear basis. So, where should one go to find these data? While we are yet to figure out a permanent response for this question, occasionally we come across one-off instances where the Courts hold these institutions accountable and demand transparency to assess the effectiveness of the mechanisms in place.

One such instance is the ongoing proceedings before the Delhi High Court in Dr. Reddy’s Labs v. Controller of Patents. The dispute originally pertained to seeking a clarification on the time limit for filing an opposition in the light of the extension granted by the Supreme Court in Suo Moto writ In re: Cognizance for extension of limitation, has now evolved into a situation whereby the court is keeping a constant check on the number of oppositions heard and disposed of by the Registry (see here and here), by directing the Registry to file periodic status reports (pdf of order dt 20 October 2022) and is then reproducing the data from those reports.

These status reports, filed before the court, respond to the following four questions

a) The number of officials who have started hearing opposition matters;

b) The number of hearings in opposition matters, which have been conducted on a daily basis in each Trademark Office of Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Ahmedabad;

c) The number of oppositions, which have been taken up for hearing and either been settled or have been disposed of; and

d) Latest pendency figures of opposition proceedings with a break-up of pendency in each jurisdiction.

As per the data of the latest status, reproduced in the order dt. 3 August 2023 of 14457 oppositions scheduled to be disposed of from 01 January 23 to 30 May 23, 24,029 cases have been settled or disposed of. Of this 24 thousand+ disposals and settlements, 16438 (i.e. 68%) have been done in the month of May alone!!

Month wise rate of disposal is given below :-

The order also shows a comparison between number of filings against the number of disposals:-

The court’s push towards ensuring transparency and keeping a check on the efficiency of the Registry should surely be appreciated. However, the explanation/ description of the data by the Registry is a little unclear. For instance, the heading for data about disposal in Table 1 which shows “the number of oppositions that have been taken up for hearing and either been settled or have been disposed of since 01.01.2023 upto 30.05.2023”, is unclearly labelled as “number of cases settled or disposed”. Are these cases number of oppositions? Or the total number of applications disposed of? Presuming that these figures are oppositions, since applications cannot be “settled,” and the court in the earlier order had specifically asked for information about oppositions, another problem pops up with the information in Table 2. The table is supposed to specify the “cumulative filing and disposal for all branches in the last five months”, however, what does this “filing” specify? Are these the numbers of oppositions filed? Or the total number of applications filed?

Similarly, for the inputs on the total number of pending oppositions in the 5 jurisdictions, the report states the number of pending applications (table below) but are these applications in which oppositions have been filed? Or are these just the total number of pending applications before the concerned office?

Let’s compare this data with the help of the data published in the latest annual report (FY 2021-22). Total 54,990 notices of opposition were issued by the Trademark Registry that year. Assuming the “filings” in Table 2 is the number of oppositions filed. Then in that case within 5 months, 66 percent of the notices of opposition in comparison to the previous figure have been filed, and will possibly result in a massive surge in the number of oppositions by the end of this year.

Speaking of surges, the total number of oppositions and rectification applications disposed of in 2021-22 was 7233. Whereas, in the month of May ’23 oppositions more than double of that number have been disposed of. The question then arises- what happened in the month of May to see this sudden hike in the number of disposals? Hopefully, this position will be clarified by the Registry in its future status reports.

H/t to a reader, who would like to stay anonymous, for sharing this latest order with me.